On Paper
by BrittWitt16
Summary: Her life was falling apart. Her mum thought she'd gotten a posh job in an office. Her dad thought she was working in a sports bar and dating some slick football player. The point being, Thea didn't have time to screw around in some community service program. She just wanted to pick up some litter and be done with it. Superpowers were the last thing on her mind.
1. Stormy Weather

It was like the sun wasn't even fucking trying. It rose over another grey, bleary day in Wertham. Not that anyone could actually see it through the clouds. More like the sky up and decided to go from charcoal grey to dusty milk and drag the rest of the world along with it. The dirty brick buildings and litter-filled courtyards didn't look very appealing in the diffused light—but then again, they didn't look appealing in direct sunlight either.

A cold breeze picked up down the street. A bright orange flyer fluttered along the gutter, its faded words advertising for some blood drive that had happened a month prior. It caught on the air like wings, drifting up and dodging a few rubbish bins and lampposts. It tumbled along a wall for a few moments before sweeping through an open window, where it promptly smacked someone in the face.

Thea spluttered awake, clawing the paper away from her face and blinking the sleep from her eyes. She glared at the flyer in her hands, and as soon as her muscles summoned the strength, ripped the orange monstrosity to shreds.

"Fucking charities," she grumbled.

Her bed rattled as she flopped back onto her mattress. She squeezed her eyes shut, tight enough that she could see white spots behind them. Then she pulled her hair over her face, pressed her head back into the pillow, held her breath with the vague idea of suffocating herself into unconsciousness. But it was too late. Already, reality was beginning to beat her over the head. She could feel the migraine growing in her temples.

With a huff, Thea blew a piece of pink and blonde hair out of her eyes to peer at her alarm. It would be going off in five fucking minutes. Of fucking course.

Knowing those few minutes wouldn't have helped but still inexplicably furious, she threw the covers off her body. She slammed the window shut and stormed out of her bedroom.

"If the landlord doesn't fix the fucking air this week, I swear to Christ I am going to rip his dick off and feed it to the ducks."

"The air?" Her flatmate did not bother looking away from the telly. "I thought last week it was the heat?"

"Last week it _was_ the heat. It's not my fault this country's climate is going to shit."

Thea collapsed dramatically across the back of the couch, allowing her legs to slip forward and deposit her into the free seat. Marnie was still watching the news, a bowl of soggy cornflakes in her lap, but she reached over to pat Thea on the knee.

"What's got you up so early?" she asked mildly.

"HPV. Can't rest until we've found a cure."

"Sounds like hungry work. Cereal?"

Marnie passed over the box of corn flakes, allowing Thea to plunge her hand into the bag and grab a fistful. She stuffed it into her mouth without pretense.

"'Fanks," she said through the crumbs. "Wha' about you? Morning...?"

"No! Don't say it!" Marnie ripped her eyes from the television, slapping Thea's arm furiously in protest. "I haven't chunked in thirty-six hours, and I don't want to jinx it!"

"Ow! Fuck, alright! Sorry."

Thea grabbed the box of cereal and scooted to the far end of the couch. She swung her legs up in front of her, hugging her knees to her chest to fit without dislodging the bowl in Marnie's lap.

"You know, I'd kick you if you weren't pregnant," she warned. "These hormones are making you violent."

"Do you think? I don't feel violent. Mostly I just feel tired. Or cranky. Or sad. Or hungry."

"You're all over the place. Look at you. You're watching the bloody news."

"Oh, this is almost over," said Marnie dismissively. "I'm just waiting for _Dinner Date_. They're running a marathon today."

"I cannot believe you watch so much of that shit," Thea giggled. "You're gonna rot your kid's brain from the inside out."

"Stop it! I just think it's sweet, okay? These people, they—they're lonely and they're sad…"

"Desperate. Total weirdos."

"…but they're still so hopeful! You know, they go out and they take a chance! They go on the show to find love…"

"And get paid to look like a twat on television."

"…and some of them find it! I've seen the follow ups, alright? Sometimes people really just connect, and they—they fall in love and live ha-happily ever af…af…"

"And here we go," Thea sighed, putting aside her cereal.

The whole thing happened in fast forward. Marnie's bottom lip trembled, and a few tears escaped over her cheeks. Her face went from white to pink to red. In a matter of seconds, she was bawling so hard that the couch was shaking. And then she clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Aw fuck, I think I'm gonna be sick!"

She was off to the bathroom like a rocket, tripping over her own feet and spilling her cereal milk on the carpet.

Thea pinched the bridge of her nose. Her headache was already spreading from her temples over her scalp, and she could feel the tugging on the back of her eyeballs. And to think she'd only been awake for a few minutes. Today was going to be a nightmare.

The sound of Marnie's retching filled the flat as Thea hauled herself off the couch. The milk was her first priority. She was not in the position to replace a mouldy carpet, or deal with pests burrowing into the floor. The bittersweet news was that she was getting fairly good at cleaning out spots. Sop up the excess, splash of seltzer, stain remover, all that. She did the whole thing on autopilot. Then she finished the dishes, wiped down the counter, and tossed out the trail of biscuit and candy wrappers Marnie had left behind all morning like breadcrumbs. Satisfied that things were as clean as they could be for the moment, she followed her friend into the bathroom.

Marnie was face down in the toilet, one hand braced on either side of the seat. Thea stepped over her to get to the sink. She rooted around in the medicine cabinet, grabbing a package of cough sweets and a spare hair tie. The lozenge she popped her mouth, the tie in hand as she squatted down behind her flatmate to pull her hair back. Marnie reached back blindly to pat her leg in thanks, and promptly spewed the rest of her guts.

Thea peeked over her shoulder and wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"Are you sure you just had corn flakes for breakfast?"

"Erm…yes?"

"You sure? Cause that looks like it used to be a pack of Jammie Dodgers."

"Ha, what? No, I…" Marnie broke off to hover over the toilet. After a terrifying pause, she let out a large belch and sank back to her knees. "Alright, so I might've eaten a sleeve round four this morning."

"Marnie."

"I needed them! It was a craving! That's normal, right?"

"That doesn't mean that you still eat them!"

"Oh, piss off! I'm gonna be sick either way. I'd rather keep something in my stomach to chuck up than sit here dry-heaving bile. My pregnancy, my choice."

Thea pursed her lips, but couldn't really argue with that. So she patted Marnie on the back and got to her feet.

"I've gotta shower, yeah? Do you need anything?"

"Ugh, no. I'll be fine. You just—oh, actually, could you pass me…?"

She trailed off, lifting her head to find that Thea was already passing her a damp washcloth. Marnie's face broke out into a smile, one of the pathetic ones that warned she was on the verge of tears, and Thea scoffed.

"Do not cry. You've already barfed up your biscuits. I'm not sure what you've got left."

"Shove it."

Thea smiled as Marnie snatched the cloth out of her hand. "Honestly, what are you going to do when I'm gone all day?"

"Enjoy my freedom," she replied brightly. "I can eat all the crisps and biscuits I like, and enjoy my crap telly in peace."

"Oh, is that right?"

"But I'll miss you," Marnie assured her with an innocent smile. "Now hurry up and get naked. I'm sure I've made you late already."

Thea rolled her eyes and kissed her friend on the head before turning back to the shower. She wasn't wrong about the time.

Longer later than she would have liked, Thea finished off her makeup and pulled on a worn leather jacket. She fluffed her hair and stepped back into the living room, holding her arms out for inspection.

"Well? What do you think?"

Marnie looked up from her reclaimed seat on the sofa. She gestured for Thea to twirl, and narrowed her eyes in scrutiny.

"I like it," she confirmed. "The jacket and boots say 'fuck off,' but the tights and the shorts say 'fuck me.' Like you get cat-called, but you punch the blokes who do."

"Not bad. I was going more for smashed-a-bottle-over-his-head."

"Oh. Probably should've gone with trousers instead of shorts and tights then. But you can always surprise them!"

"Fuck it," Thea groaned, grabbing her bag. "I'll have to change when I get there anyway, and I'm late as is."

"Do you know when you'll be back?" Marnie called as she headed for the door.

"No idea! But if I'm late, _do not _forget you've got a shift tomorrow morning!"

"What's it matter? All the Sainsbury's are getting self-checkout anyway." Thea popped her head back around the corner to glare at her until she sighed. "I _know_, Mum. I'm joking. Remember? We used to do that as kids?"

"Piss off, Marn. I'll see you later."

Thea's walk across the Estate was unimpressive to say the least. It was a mess of ugly concrete buildings and alleys and overpasses all covered in graffiti. Everything was the same. That is to say—grey, dirty, and uniform. Had she not lived there for several years, she might've wandered in circles for hours without realising it. When she first moved into her flat, she had. Now that she had a better idea of where she was going, it just made the walk drag on. Walk one block or ten, it all looked the same.

She lowered her music as she approached the community centre. It was the biggest building on the lakeside, and Thea had not once stepped inside it. As far as she could tell, it was only for little kids and lonely seniors anyway. It hosted workshops and charity fairs and monthly book clubs and whatever else was advertised on all the stupid flyers she'd ever found crawling along her street. Nothing she was remotely interested in knowing about.

There were already several people milling around in front of the building, most dressed in bright orange jumpsuits. Thea cursed under her breath and did her best to keep her head down. If she could just make it into the building without drawing any attention to herself…

Of course, that wouldn't be allowed to go to plan.

A wolf whistle cut through the air, making her look up instinctively. It was one of the jumpsuit boys, wild brown curls bouncing in the breeze as he eyed her with unabashed interest.

"Holy hell," he called with a thick Irish accent. "Someone please tell me she's in for public indecency."

Thea ignored him, pretending that her music was too loud to make anything out. She would've scurried right into the building had some macho, clipboard-man not stepped directly in front of her.

"You're late."

Thea just stared at him, eyebrows raised. She flinched when he reached forward to rip out one of her earbuds.

"I said, you're late," he repeated.

"Sorry," she said flatly. "I was sick."

"Really."

"Yeah. Projectile vomit, all over the walls. And then I had to clean it up before my mum got home."

"You seem fine to me."

"I got better. A God-given miracle."

A few of the jumpsuit kids snickered, and the man's face became even stonier. He bristled, hands tightening on his fragile clipboard. Thea did her best not to react. He was a big man, but he was also a probation worker. Pussy trumped muscles every time.

"Just go get changed," he ordered, nodding to the community centre. "Locker room's inside on your right. Find a locker and grab a jumpsuit."

Thea gave him a venomous smile and popped her earbud back in. Then she followed his instruction into the building.

The interior was about what she'd expected. It was absolutely deserted, just dirty floors and cinder block walls that had been covered in message boards and tacky murals. There were stacks of plastic chairs, and a bin in the corner full of miscellaneous toys and footballs. It felt a bit like a primary school that had been abandoned for a decade after some kind of mold infestation. It was unsettling.

She ducked into the locker room, a little surprised to find that she wasn't alone. A stocky blonde girl pushed past her in the doorway, and another boy was still changing into his coveralls. He seemed to be deliberating about doing up the front or just tying the sleeves around his waist.

Thea did a double take when she saw him. She _knew_ that guy. That was Curtis Donovan. He was supposed to be some hot shot runner or something. Her father had talked her ear off about it last time there had been talk about the Olympics, and she'd seen the guy on the news a handful of times. It struck her that she'd known there'd been some sort of arrest, but she had no idea that it would land him here.

Apparently she'd been staring just a little too long, because Curtis turned around to glare at her.

"You got something to say?" he snapped.

Thea smirked, raising her hands in surrender. She already had several things she wanted to say to that, but she figured it would be in her best interest to keep them to herself.

Curtis slammed his locker shut and yanked the sleeves of his jumpsuit tight around his hips. Then he stormed out of the locker room and into the hallway.

Finally alone, Thea took her time peeking through the different lockers. Some of them were already claimed, and she perused through the items inside, imagining who they might belong to and what brought them to this fresh hell. She selected a free unit farthest from the door and hung her jacket and purse inside. After she took out her money and stuffed it in her left boot, of course. Then she stripped down to her camisole and stockings and turned to her own jumpsuit.

More fucking orange. Spectacular.

The coveralls had several wonderful qualities. The colour, for one. Then there was the worn fabric that made it abundantly clear these had been worn by perhaps hundreds of young offenders before her. There were faint stains on the legs that could have been anything from paint to blood to motor oil. And the proportions must have been made to suit some kind of alien. She was swimming in the fabric that barely fit her tits and swamped around her thighs, with sleeves hanging so far past her hands it made her look like some sort of freakish muppet. She ended up rolling them back above her elbows and cuffing the legs right above her combat boots.

A full length mirror hung on the wall to her left, and she took a moment to take one last look at herself. It was ridiculously depressing. All that time spent deliberating about first impressions gone completely to waste. She did not look intimidating in the slightest. She looked like a twelve-year-old dressed as a convict for Halloween.

Thea pursed her lips, tousling her hair and straightening the few necklaces that peeked out of the jumpsuit.

"You can always surprise them," she reminded herself.

She glared at her reflection, setting her jaw and clenching her hands into fists at her sides. She just had to buck up and get through it. Bitter and silent, no complications, clock in and clock out. It would all be over soon enough.

With a final nod, she marched out of the locker room once more.

"Thank you for deciding to join us," the clipboard-man grumbled as she exited the building.

She gave him the same hostile smile and fell into line with the rest of the jumpsuits alone the railing. She chose to keep her distance from Mr. Fame Racer, and stood on the other end of the line next to a pale boy with his collar done up too tight. He shifted away from her when she joined him. It made Thea feel a little bit better.

"Alright, listen up," the big man called. He braced his hands on his clipboard in front of him, feet spread in a classic power stance. It made the track and field shirt look a bit overkill. "My name is Tony Morecombe, and I will be your probation worker for the duration of your community service. Before we get started, I just want to go through roll…"

Someone down the line snorted the laugh that Thea was holding back.

"Oi, what is this, mate?" the boy asked, flicking the bill of his obnoxious hat. "I know we ain't in school cause I dropped that bullshit ages ago."

"Yeah, no one's surprised," shot the pretty black girl to his left.

"Settle down," Tony ordered again. He already seemed to be getting weary. "Just acknowledge when your name's called. Thea Alcott…"

Thea did not acknowledge her name being called. She waited until the probation worker cleared his throat again before flashing him her two fingers and leaning back on the railing. He gave her a warning look, but moved down the list.

"Kelly Bailey…"

The stocky blonde girl lifted an uninterested hand.

"Simon Bellamy…"

The collar-choker to Thea's right attempted to raise his hand in the same way, failed halfway there, and quickly brought his hand back to his side.

"Alisha Daniels…"

"Yeah," the pretty black girl repeated without looking up from her nails.

"Curtis Donovan…"

Curtis did not say anything, but with the several heads that turned in his direction, it was obvious that they all knew he was present.

"Gary Tullan…"

"Whatever," the hat-douche grumbled.

"And lucky number seven, Nathan Young."

"Hey," the curly-haired Irish boy cheered. "I certainly hope so, yeah?"

He turned down the line to wink at Thea, who immediately regretted trying to observe her peers at all. She'd just go back to staring vacantly in front of her. It'd be less taxing.

"So," the probation worker called loudly, attempting to hold their attention. "This is it. This is your chance to do something positive. Give something back. You can help people. You can really make a difference to people's lives. That's what community service is all about."

That poetic rallying cry didn't seem to be doing anything for any of them. So Tony changed his approach.

"There are people out there that think you're scum. You have the opportunity to show them they're wrong."

"Yeah, but what if they're right?" The Irish one—Nathan—was mouthing off again. "No offence. But I'm thinking some people are just born criminals."

Thea did not turn to watch this time, but he must have not so subtly been pointing at his neighbour, because angry-hat-boy then snarled, "Are you looking ta get stabbed?"

"You see my point there?"

A shrill ringtone cut off the altercation, which the girl Alisha answered without the slightest reservation. "Hey!"

"Doesn't matter what you've done in the past," Tony attempted to go on.

"I can't," Alisha continued. "Doing my community service."

"Hey."

"Boring as fuck."

"Excuse me," he barked. "Hello? I'm still talking here."

"What, I thought you'd finished," she snapped at him.

"You see my lips still moving? That means I'm still talking."

"Yeah, but you could have been yawning," Nathan jumped in. "Or chewing."

Things were quickly dissolving into chaos. Tony was calling for an end to the phone conversation, which Alisha was pointedly ignoring. Nathan was multitasking bothering Simon the Collar-Choker and Gary the Hat-Man at the same time. Curtis's unimpressed voice joined the fray asking to be moved to a different group. Then the stocky blonde girl finally snapped.

"Erm, wot makes ya think that yer betta than us?"

Even Thea turned to stare at her.

"What is that accent?" Nathan asked gleefully.

"Is that for real?" asked Curtis.

"Wot, you tryin' ta say somethin' now, then yeah?"

"It's—Are you—That's just a noise!" Nathan guffawed. "Are we supposed to be able to understand her?"

"Do ya understand that?" she asked, flipping him the bird.

Nathan giggled, throwing an arm around Gary. "I think she likes me."

Gary immediately leapt for Nathan's throat. Whether he was attempting to throttle him or push him over the barrier to the lake, it wasn't clear. But it did succeed in tipping them over into total pandemonium.

"Hey! Pack it in!" Tony was screaming, yanking Gary by the back of his jumpsuit. "Down! That's enough!"

He grabbed Gary round the middle, barely restraining him from leaping over his shoulder to tear Nathan limb from limb. Nathan was squaring up, punching the air with such terrible form it was a wonder he didn't give himself a black eye on accident. Gary was spewing insults and threats faster than anyone could comprehend. Granted, it was hard to hear anything over Nathan's squawking and everyone else's laughter.

Thea chewed hard on the inside of her cheek, determined not to let out a peep. Then Nathan gave an overeager right hook and tripped himself into a picnic table. She snorted in spite of herself.

Correction. The next few weeks were going to be a nightmare.

This went on for several minutes until Tony'd finally had enough. He picked Gary up off the ground, letting him kick and flail to absolutely no effect. He looked like a small toddler having a tantrum—and the hat wasn't helping much. Thea had to cover her face with her hands to contain her snickers.

"I said that's enough!" Tony bellowed. He put Gary back on the ground, and shoved him toward the building with more force than a friendly neighbourhood probation worker was probably allowed to use. "All of you get inside. Grab a paint can and a paint brush, and follow me."

Their collective groan just made him laugh harshly as he ushered them all into the building to collect their things.

Thea did her best to keep to the sides as Tony led them around the lake. Mayhem was fun to watch, sure, but she didn't need to be getting involved. The last thing she wanted was an extended sentence, tied only with having more people to talk to. It was just going to complicate everything.

"Park benches," Tony announced when they stopped, gesturing to them like some sort of pathetic game show host. "A delinquent's favourite canvas. The council wants these painted over. So start with these three, and work your way around the shore. Shouldn't take long with seven of you."

He clapped his hands and took a step back toward the community centre.

"You're not staying to supervise us?" asked the quiet kid. Rather than joy, the thought seemed to fill him with panic.

"I'll be back to check your progress," Tony assured him. "And I've got eyes everywhere. So do us a favour, and don't dick around. Hop to it."

To his credit, he did stand and watch until at least half of them had opened their paint cans. At that point, there was nothing better to do than paint the stupid benches.

Thea stared down at the paint in disgust. Dusty milk white. Exactly what this community needed. More greyscale. She might've preferred orange.

"Hey, Candy Floss!" Against her better judgement, Thea looked up to find the Irish boy leering at her again. He was draped across the middle bench like some would-be-casual model, his paintbrush between his teeth. He waggled his eyebrows, and spat it out long enough to ask, "Care to be bench buddies?"

She summoned up her best look of pity and disgust.

"Don't put that in your mouth. You've probably got herpes."

"What's it to you?" he asked. "Unless you're planning to sample the merchandise? Wait—are you sayin' I've got herpes from the brush or that I'm leaving it on there? Cause that's mean!"

Thea pulled her iPod out of her pocket and swiftly put her headphones back in.

She carried her bucket to the last bench on the curb, across from the quiet boy, Simon. He seemed least likely to initiate any kind of conversation. She was hesitant about having to put up with Gary, but as it turned out, that problem sorted itself.

They'd barely been at it ten minutes when Gary accidentally head-butted the seat of the bench. He froze, ripping the hat off his head to inspect the bill.

"Aw, man! There's paint on my cap! This is bullshit!"

Thea moved just in time to avoid a swift kick to the ribs. Gary hit her paint can instead, sending it skittering across the pavement and clunking into the already thoroughly polluted water. A trail of white paint shone ominously on the concrete. They'd surely have to clean that later as well.

The others giggled and hollered as Gary stormed off, brutalising several more inanimate objects on his way. Thea moved to claim his paint can and surreptitiously paused her music. She left her headphones in for cover, obviously. She just wanted to listen into the conversations around her.

"So, I'm guessing shoplifting?" Nathan was asking Kelly, not even pretending to be painting the bench. "No? Am I close?"

"Don' act like ya know me, cause ya don't," she huffed.

"I'm just making conversation," he said innocently. "This is a chance to network with other young offenders. We should be swappin' tips. Brainstorming. Come on. What did you do?"

There was a pause as Kelly considered him. Then she said in a rush, "This girl called me a slag so I just got into a fight."

"…Was this on the Jeremy Kyle show?"

"No, it was at Argos."

"Oh, Argos." Thea did not look up this time, but she could picture him nodding sagely. "You know what you should've done? You shoulda got one of them little pens they have and jabbed it in her eye."

It seemed Kelly wasn't impressed by this suggestion, because Nathan quickly changed targets.

"What about you, weird kid? Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but you look like a panty sniffer."

Simon froze on the other side of the bench, looking back at her with undisguised terror. Thea would've felt bad if she weren't so inclined to agree with Nathan. The kid was definitely off. He looked like someone straight off _The Bill._

"I'm not a panty sniffer," he said stiffly, though he seemed so worried it was hard to believe him. "I'm _not_ a pervert."

Thea shook her head in disbelief and turned back to the bench. Nathan was miming something in her periphery that she had no interest in witnessing. She focused intently on the misshapen penis she was painting over. The artist had pressed so hard that it was more an etching than a drawing. It would take more than a coat of paint to cover up something like…

"I tried to burn someone's house down!"

Simon's outburst made everyone freeze, and Thea actually leaned back in surprise. Nathan let out an amused wheeze and backed up to his bench. Making a split decision, Thea picked up her paint can and followed him. She'd take the mouthy one over a psycho.

"Aha, welcome to the fun bench," Nathan cheered as she dropped her paint can next to Kelly. She did her best to ignore him, but he only leaned forward to rip out one of her earbuds. "Come on, I know you can hear me."

"Touch me again, and I rip off your arm."

"Ooh, feisty," he said appreciatively. "So what're you in for, Candy Floss? Don't suppose it was a bit of public doggin'? You look like you'd be into that kinky shit."

"You're not that lucky," she snorted.

"Yeah, I figured. Probably just a light charge of indecent exposure, right? Did you bless everyone on the tube with a look at your knockers? Knickers? Knockers and knickers?"

Thea made the mistake of smirking at that, making Nathan break out into a grin.

"Ah, I'm getting warmer!"

"Really?" Kelly asked in clear horror. "Tha's disgustin'."

"So what happened? Don't spare the details."

Her first choice would've been to ignore them. But she'd put herself in this situation, and she supposed she'd have to talk her way out of it.

"I was in the park, yeah?" she started, mindlessly sweeping her brush over the bench slats. "Just coming home from work, minding my own business. And this creep starts following me down the path. Weedy little Irish guy, mouthing off about my tits and my arse or whatever."

"Well, can ya blame him?" Nathan asked charmingly.

Kelly snorted. At least one of them was smart enough to guess where the story was heading.

"Anyway, he's been following me a few minutes and I finally turned round to ask what he wanted. And yeah, I was feeling a little charitable, so I let him pull me over to a patch of trees."

"Oh, naughty," Nathan gasped, his breath catching in his throat.

Thea grinned at him, and started to lean forward over the bench.

"So we're snogging, and he gets his cock out."

"Yeah?"

"And I take it in my hand."

"_Yeah_?"

"And then I…" Thea twisted her paintbrush viciously, making a crunching noise in Nathan's face. "…twisted it so hard he thought it was about to pop off. Nearly did, too. He was bleeding and everything. He's the one with the ASBO for exposure though."

Nathan's face was priceless. Worth moving benches for, at the very least. It took him several seconds to move, and when he did, it was to cup his hands protectively over his junk. He looked equally horrified and aroused, which was enough to make Thea giggle. She reached into her pocket and pulled out another cough sweet, popping it into her mouth with a wink.

"No way," Kelly said resolutely. "If he were bleedin' from the cock ya would've done time."

"Oh, well spotted," Thea snorted. "Yeah, I lied."

"Now why would you lie about something like that?" demanded Nathan. "That's a sensitive subject, that is."

"Yeah. Kinda the point."

"Well then, what did you really do?"

"You first," she challenged. "What did you do?"

"Me? I was done for uh…eating some pix n' mix."

"Bollocks," shot Kelly, and Thea snorted in agreement.

Before Nathan could defend his point, a crack of thunder rolled overhead, making most of them jump.

"What is up with this weather?" he asked, looking around wildly.

Thea looked up over his shoulder. There was a heavy grey cloud forming over the lake, darker than the rest of the overcast day. It was spreading rapidly, reaching out over the banks until it threatened to eclipse the whole sky. It swirled threateningly, almost like it was full of mini tornadoes.

"How did that happen?" Tony had reappeared on the sidewalk. He was looking at the pavement rather than the sky. "I mean, you've been here five minutes. It's painting benches. How'd you screw that up? You tell me, because I've got no idea."

"Tantrum Boy," Thea offered with a shrug. "He said something about…"

_CRASH!_

There was an explosion. Thea screamed and stumbled back toward the lake, slamming into Nathan in her attempt to flee. More people were shouting, a car alarm was going off wildly, and one of the cars on the street had been completely caved in. They gaped at it in shock. Only then did Thea notice something else had been spattered across the pavement. It looked like ice.

"That's my car," Tony gasped in dismay, staring at the wreck.

"Classic," laughed Nathan.

Thea smacked him, only for him to grab her as another explosion went off in the water behind them. They ducked, both scrambling for the steps.

"Okay," Nathan was yelling now. "So I'm a little freaked out!"

"What is that?"

Everyone turned to Alisha, then followed her gaze back up to the sky. The cloud was larger now, nearly black on the bottom. The swirls Thea had noticed were stretching out into tendrils, twisting unnaturally toward the ground.

"That is not normal," she observed in a hollow voice.

"Ya think?" Kelly spat from behind her.

Another crash, and the dumpster at the end of the block exploded as well. Rubbish and ice spewed everywhere, and Simon was sent flying back toward the benches. The rest of them were just standing and screaming. They were all sitting ducks.

"Right, let's get everyone inside," Tony ordered, shakily getting himself under control. "Move! Move! Run!"

As if they needed another push, the fourth explosion of ice sent them careening into motion. All seven of them were up the steps, sprinting back toward the community centre with Curtis in the lead. Thea would curse him later for being an Olympic runner, but in the moment the only thought she had was to keep her legs moving and not get blown to bits.

Things were bursting all around them. The pavement cracked under their feet. Phone booths shattered, sending glass all over the path. It might have been raining, but it also might've been the hail rebounding off the trees. There was no way to be sure.

They made it up the steps to the community centre and suddenly stopped. No one was going inside.

"What the fuck's going on?" Thea demanded. "Let's go!"

"It's locked!" Curtis screamed, punching the door. "Open it! Come on, open it!"

Tony stumbled forward, fumbling with his keys as the rest of them yelled at him. Everyone was screaming. Nathan cried out as a block of ice came down and slammed into his back, and Kelly shrieked in surprise. Thea grabbed them both by the wrists, yanking them under the cover of the overhang.

"Get against the walls! Everyone back up!"

"Just open the fucking door!" Alisha screeched.

"Don't speak to me like that!" Tony hollered back.

And just before Thea was about to give him a piece of her mind, her feet left the ground.

The pain was indescribable. It was like she was being fried from the inside out, then being frozen from the outside in. She could see everything and then nothing, hear her own heartbeat and then everything in the world. It hurt.

Her back slammed into the ground and then the rest of the pain registered. It felt like she'd jumped in front of a train. After a few panicked moments, she realised that she couldn't even breathe. She coughed frantically. Then she rolled on her side and spit her cough drop out onto the pavement.

"Oh, very sexy," Nathan groaned next to her.

She would've punched him, but she didn't have the energy.

"I feel really weird," said Kelly. She was already sitting up, staring vacantly at the steps to the community centre.

"That'll be the lightning," grunted Curtis.

"We should be dead," said Simon.

Nathan snorted, but it was clearly causing him a lot of pain. "A little reassurance might be nice, you know. 'You're fine!' 'Looking good!'"

Tony did not have any words of encouragement for them, though. Instead, he sat up slowly, all of his muscles twitching independently.

"Wanker."

Everyone blinked.

"Did he just call me a wanker?" Nathan asked in disbelief. He snapped his fingers furiously. "Hey! Hello?"

Tony stared back at him. He did not apologise, but he also made no move to explain himself.

"Is everyone alright?"

"We could've died, you dick," Alisha snapped.

"Are you alright?" asked Kelly, who was still watching him twitch. "Ya acting like a freak."

Again, Thea had to agree with her. Tony looked on the verge of some kind of fit. He kept stretching his jaw like he expected it to come unhinged, and his arms and legs were wracked with spasms. She might've suggested a trip to the hospital, but as soon as the thought registered, he straightened up.

"Maybe we should call it a day," he suggested.

"Spectacular," Thea groaned, and pushed herself to her feet.

They were all a little unsteady as they filed into the locker room. For the first time that day, they were quiet as well. It was almost unsettling after a whole morning or arguing and screaming.

Thea kept her head down, waiting until the boys had gone into the hallway before taking off her coveralls. She sunk into her warm flannel and leather jacket. It felt good to be in her own clothes. After a first day like that, she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to get comfortable in the orange jumpsuit.

"Wot'd ya say?"

Thea looked over at Kelly, who was now glaring at Alisha in the silent room.

"I didn't say anything," said Alisha. She slammed her locker shut with a huff.

"Wot?" Kelly demanded again, turning away from the mirror.

"What?"

"_Wot_?"

Thea grabbed her purse and tried to skirt around them. Everything they'd been through and they were still itching for another cat fight. God, she couldn't want to get out of this shithole.

"Oi," Kelly snarled, her head snapping around to glare at her. "Mind ya own business, bitch!"

"Whatever."

Thea put her hands up and stormed out into the hallway, Alisha right on her tail. The boys were all milling around the vending machine. None of them made any move to leave.

"We waiting for something?" asked Alisha.

"Probation worker," Curtis answered, making her snort.

"I'm not hanging around for that dickhead."

Without another thought, she headed for the doors to the facility. The rest of them exchanged looks. She had a point. And if they all left, what kind of repercussions could they really stick them with? He'd told them to call it a day, after all.

Thea popped another cough sweet in her mouth, using the length of her strides to try and stay at the front of the group. Unfortunately, she was by no means the tallest one of the bunch.

"Hey, can I have one?" asked Nathan, catching up to her side.

"No."

She put on her headphones and made an unnecessary left turn. She'd take the long way home if she had to. It had been a long day, she had nowhere to be, and she did not want any one of those shitheads to know where she lived.

* * *

**A/N: **Alright, so I caved and started a second story. This story will not be posted on any kind of schedule, and it will not affect the schedule of _Gospel of the Chosen_. I guess I feel a bit freer to share this work in progress because the show has been over for so long. But the wormhole of The Umbrella Academy led me here, and I felt compelled to share. I hope you enjoy the leap with me.

**This story is rated M** for all the same reasons the show was. It will have adult language, violence, drinking and substance abuse, and deal with sexual themes and content. **Trigger warnings** will be added for specific chapters. For visuals and additional information regarding this story and my other works, please see my Tumblr page, thetenthdoctorscompanion. Thank you, again and let me know what you think!

-Brittney


	2. Listen and Learn

She was drowning. It was the only plausible explanation. Her clothes were slicked to her skin, and every breath she sucked in felt void of oxygen. It felt like swimming.

Thea pried her eyes open, which was easier said than done. They'd crusted over while she was asleep, the gunk inky black from the eyeliner she hadn't bothered to remove the night before. It was probably streaked across her face, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

She literally had to peel the sheets off her legs. They were saturated in sweat, sticking to her like a second skin. She stripped her sleep shirt and her shorts as well, and walked out into the living room in her knickers and a sports bra. She walked around the couch before sitting down this morning. Her skin felt so sticky she might not have been able to slide.

"Morning," greeted Marnie. She was sitting in the same spot on the couch, wearing the same pyjamas, eating from the same dwindling box of corn flakes. She still did not look away from the news. "Heat?"

"Heat," Thea confirmed. She laid an arm over her eyes to block out the sunlight. "God, I feel wretched."

"You know, that's so weird. I've been freezing all morning."

"You're pregnant. You don't count."

"Excuse me," gasped Marnie, "I do too count! That expecting book you bought me for my birthday says all my feelings are valid and that I need to communicate my needs."

"I didn't know you were actually reading that."

Thea sat up slightly, enough that she could make a grab for the cereal. But Marnie pulled it out of her reach with a pout.

"Ah! If you want breakfast, I'll need you to apologise."

"Is that so?" Thea glowered at her. "How about I kick you out of my flat and you live in the Sainsbury store room for the next six months?"

"Please," Marnie scoffed. "You wouldn't do that to your godson. Or goddaughter. Find a better threat."

"Fuck you. I'm sorry."

Marnie smiled and passed over the box of corn flakes. Thea took it graciously, but paused. She fixed Marnie with a suspicious glare, making her scoff.

"Yes, I've only had the cereal. Strict orders from my makeshift physician."

"You'll thank me later," Thea shot, grabbing the box from her hands. Marnie only giggled. "What?"

"You look like a beautiful raccoon."

Thea smacked her in the tit with the cereal box. It didn't do much except make Marnie burst into laughter. Thea huffed, sliding from the couch seat onto the floor, but Marnie was attempting to grab her breakfast back, leaving them at a standoff.

Marnie tugged at the box. Thea tugged back.

"Don't do it," she warned. "You break this box, the corn flakes go everywhere, and then we'll both be late."

"True," Marnie agreed. "So let go of the box."

"You let go of the box."

"I'm not letting go of the box. I'm pregnant."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Pregnant women always get first dibs on munchies! I'm eating for two."

"That's not how it works, you stupid bint."

"Ah! Insult! Forfeit!"

"Fuck," Thea huffed, releasing the cereal. She stuck her tongue out and pushed herself to her knees, crawling toward the kitchen. "I wanted Pop Tarts anyway."

She ignored the swat Marnie gave her arse. Any more retaliation and she'd be late for service again. As much as she didn't care, she didn't want to deal with a lecture from her probation worker. Tony seemed the type to give lectures, and the type to start handing out punishments when no one found those lectures interesting. Thea would take the path of least resistance.

By some small miracle, she and Marnie both made it out of the flat on time. Thea was sucking on another cough drop, one earbud in as the two of them headed for the Sainsbury's on the main road where Marnie worked as a cashier. Marnie was giving her a rundown of the best _Dinner Date_ episodes from the day before, but Thea was only half listening.

It was normal for her to walk Marnie to work. It was normal for them to bicker and argue in the mornings. It was normal for her to passively listen to Marnie's theses on daytime telly. But Thea couldn't help feeling something was off. Her eyes kept drifting up to the sky. It was overcast—something else that was completely normal. No ominous dark cloud or stray bits of ice. It all looked the same.

"Are you alright?" Marnie asked, grabbing her hand to lace their fingers together.

Thea braved a smile. "Yeah. Just feel a bit weird."

"Hmph. Well I guess that's to be expected. After yesterday."

Her snippy tone made Thea grin. Marnie had not been happy when Thea got home hours early with the excuse that she'd been struck by lightning. She'd been so panicked that she promptly threw up all the Wotsits she'd eaten. The toilet was still stained orange.

They'd moved past the subject over children's movies and takeaway, but Marnie's disapproval lingered. She seemed to take it as a personal offence that Thea would get hurt while she was out of the house. As if she'd jumped in front of the lightning on purpose. But it was no use defending herself. She just promised to be more careful next time a horror movie storm cloud rolled into town.

_"I guess that's to be expected after yesterday," _Thea mocked. _"Gosh, you sound like my mum."_

Marnie blinked at her, anger forgotten. "That sounds _exactly_ like me! How are you doing that?"

_"Doing what?"_ Thea asked in Marnie's Welsh-leaning accent. "_This? I don't know. I get a lot of practice making fun of you. I must be_—ow!"

She jumped as Marnie whacked her on the arm, snapping her out of her impression. Thea gaped at her.

"What the fuck, Marnie?"

"Don't make fun of my voice! I can't do anything to change it! It's just a voice! I don't like it! It's not funny!"

Her voice was trembling dangerously, and even though she wasn't making much sense, Thea knew better than to argue.

"Alright, alright. I'm sorry."

She grabbed her hand again and planted a quick kiss to her temple. It seemed to pull Marnie away from her hormonal ledge for the moment, which was the most Thea could ask for. She was still getting used to her friend's new mood swings. She just hoped they could make it to Sainsbury's without a complete meltdown.

The market was pretty slow on weekday mornings. Thea waited around for Marnie to clock in, loitering amongst the produce until she made it behind the till. Then she grabbed a cider and sandwich and headed up to the counter.

"Really?" Marnie scoffed as she rang her up.

"What? It's just apple juice. For adults."

"You—You don't have to p-parade it in front of me." Marnie's eyes welled with fake tears. "I just can't believe you're so selfish. I should've left when I had the chance."

"Don't worry, love," Thea assured her. "After you've had the baby, I'll buy several, big, expensive bottles of wine."

"Thank you."

"Which I shall drink by myself."

"Hey!"

"Sorry," she said with a shrug. "You'll be breastfeeding. Pretty sure alcohol is still a no-go until that's at full stop."

Marnie pouted grumpily as Thea grabbed her bottle. She wrapped it in the plastic bag, popping the cap off the edge of the counter in a manner that showed she'd had far too much practice.

"Besides," she said after a few sips. "I deserve it. Some of us were struck by lightning yesterday."

"I can't believe they're still making you go to service," said Marnie, shaking her head. "If that doesn't warrant a week off, I don't know what does."

"Eh, I don't mind. I feel alright, for the most part. And I'd rather have it done with."

"It shouldn't have to be done at all! It's Tommy's fault your stuck there, not yours!"

Thea took a large gulp from her bottle instead of replying. This was an argument they'd had more than once, and one she'd been sick of before they started. There was no point debating why she was doing community service or whose fault it was or what each party deserved. People rarely got what they deserved. All you could do was deal with it.

"Sorry," Marnie mumbled. "But they should at least strike a week from your sentence. I mean, you were stuck by lightning under the probation worker's watch! Isn't that punishment enough?"

"Pretty sure that's not how laws work," replied Thea with a soft smile. "But I appreciate the support."

Marnie sighed. She glanced at the clock on her screen and reached over the counter, rummaging around in the candy rack. She held up a Mars bar with a grin.

"Chug it and I'll buy you second breakfast?"

Thea rolled her eyes. But she never backed down from a challenge.

Taking a discrete look around the shop, she tipped her head back and drained the rest of the bottle. Marnie went to clap, but Thea held up her finger. She wobbled on her feet, her lips puckered tight to avoid any casualties. Then she burped, and swept into a deep bow.

"And she's ready for the day," cheered Marnie.

She tossed the candy bar, which Thea caught and tossed into her bag. She tossed the bottle in exchange, which Marnie disposed of behind the counter.

"You're a bad influence," Thea giggled, backing up toward the door. "You're gonna make a bad parent."

"Not if you're one first! No. That doesn't make sense. Sod it."

Thea blew her a kiss and skipped out the door.

With one drink under her belt, she was a little less apprehensive about approaching the community centre. Yes, her day was going to suck, but everything was more tolerable with alcohol. She should really start bringing a flask. Strap it to her waist or disguise it as some tampons or something.

She popped in her earbuds, comfortable enough that she thought she'd actually put on music instead of just eavesdropping this morning. She was still deliberating songs when she rounded the corner. She promptly stopped thinking about her music.

The windows along the side of the community centre had been boarded up after yesterday's storm. That wasn't news. Loads of shit had broken and cracked yesterday, inside the building and out. But Thea was fairly certain that when they'd left yesterday afternoon, there hadn't been any graffiti on the side of the building. There wouldn't have been enough time. And she was fairly certain she would have remembered walking past bright red letters spelling out _IM GOING TO KILL YOU._

"Holy shit," she breathed, walking up to the rest of the group. "The fuck is that about?"

"Dunno," said Kelly with a shrug.

She and Simon were staring at the wall as well. Alisha already seemed to be over the shock, and was leaning against the letter Y while she typed away on her phone.

"Do you think it's for us?" Simon asked in a trembling voice.

"Well, I doubt it's for the monthly knitting circle," said Thea. "But a bunch of young convicts corrupting the youth of England? Yeah, that checks out."

"We ain' fookin' convicts, though," Kelly complained. "We're just doin' community payback."

"Oh, right. So you never crossed the street to get away from one of those jumpsuits?"

Kelly snorted, but did not acknowledge the question.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. It's like Clipboard Man said. People think we're scum, and they'd like to be rid of us."

"Oh my god, will all of you shut up?" groaned Alisha. "It's just someone mucking around. If they were serious they wouldn't be spray painting their threats like a fucking toddler."

"I'm in for spray painting," said Thea flatly.

Alisha blinked at her, unimpressed. "Yeah? And?"

"Why d'ya keep lyin'?"

Thea turned to Kelly, who was squinting at her. She didn't even seem annoyed anymore. Just plain curious. It made Thea's stomach lurch.

"What do you mean?"

"Why d'ya keep lyin' 'bout wot yer in fer?"

"I'm not," Thea insisted. "I was tagging the side of a school, alright?"

"Erm, no ya weren't."

"Well what the fuck do you know about it?"

"I know ya lyin', fa one."

"The hell is this?" Their argument was interrupted by Curtis, who was glaring at the paint on the side of the building. "This is a joke! Did one of you do this?"

"Don' look at me, cuz I didn' do it," Kelly scoffed.

"It's probably her," said Alisha, nodding to Thea. "She just said she's in for vandalism."

"Yeah," Thea laughed. "And my first thought would be to decorate the building I'm serving time in. Give myself a little more work. You know we're gonna have to clean this, right? Why would I do something that dumb?"

"I don't know. I didn't say you were smart."

"Fuck off. I didn't do it."

"I'll tell you who did it!"

They all turned to see Nathan strolling up the walk. He had a cigarette hanging between his lips, and any shock he might've registered looking at the wall was immediately banished with the opportunity to fuck around. He stopped next to Thea, plucking the cigarette back and twirling it between his fingers. He spent a few more seconds soaking in the fact that he had their complete attention before he continued.

"It's that Banksy prick. There's a hidden meaning. It's like that monkey policeman with the banana and the Tesco's bag."

"Obviously," Thea sighed in mock realisation. "Yeah. We're meant to figure out why _KILL_ is underlined three times."

"There ya go," Nathan praised, popping his cigarette back in his mouth. "Candy's got it."

"Maybe someone wants to kill us," Simon suggested, still very stiff.

"Why would anybody want ta kill us?" asked Kelly. She glared at Thea before she could open her mouth. "Besides tha'."

But nobody else it seemed had an answer.

"Alright, come on you lot," called Tony, ambling down the sidewalk to collect them. "Let's get changed."

"Have you seen this?" Curtis demanded. "Someone's taking the piss."

Thea barely repressed a snort. He'd made it all the way down the sidewalk and arrived several hours before them, and Boy Genius wanted to ask if he'd possibly noticed the blood red graffiti on the side of the building. Were all athletes dumb as dirt?

Kelly snorted a few people over while Tony pretended to inspect the wall art.

"Yeah, it's terrible, isn't it? All this anti-social behaviour."

"Oh!" Nathan gasped. "Is he having a dig at us?"

Tony glared at him, but any scolding or reprimands were interrupted by the loud trill of Alisha's cellphone. Thea would've laughed, if Tony hadn't positively convulsed at the sound and immediately began screaming.

"Right! That's it! All of you, just give me your phones! No one's making any more calls today! Now! Come on!"

He advanced on Alisha, who pulled her phone out of his reach with a look of utter amusement. "Are you allowed to take our phones?"

She held up her phone, snapping a photo of his hulking, angry face. She and Kelly both giggled when he snatched it out of her hands. Curtis handed over his phone apprehensively, while Kelly crossed her arms over her chest.

"Wot?"

Tony scowled at her, reaching around to pry her phone out from under her forearm. Simon forfeited his without a fight, unsurprisingly. But Thea made no move to get her things from her purse.

"Sorry," she offered the man with a shrug. "I'm waiting on a call from my mum. She's got a severe medical condition, so…"

"Give me the phone, or I take the whole bag."

Thea rolled her eyes, fishing it out and tossing it to hit his broad chest.

"I'm actually expecting a call from my mum too," Nathan tried lamely. He still managed to look offended when his phone was ripped from his fingers. "Okay! Take a message."

Tony did not reply. He didn't smile, or yell, or give them any direction. He just stood there and glowered at them all, fixing them each with his stare one by one. It was incredibly creepy. Thea had to marvel at how much he'd changed since yesterday morning. Where was the wannabe track coach who wanted to foster their love of the community? Had they really pushed him that far with a couple phone calls and a few scuffles?

She was grateful when Curtis made the first move. He pulled his hood up over his head, nearly shoulder-checking Tony on his way to the front door. Nathan was quick on his heels, and the rest of them followed suit.

"Fuck," Nathan grumbled, lighting his cigarette as they walked. "I really needed my phone. Can't believe that didn't work."

"Seriously?" Thea sneered. "Then next time don't steal my excuse."

"Hey, that was no excuse! I'm really waiting to hear from my mum! What about you?"

"No, of course not."

"Well, ha! Then next time don't steal _my_ excuse!"

"I went first, you dipshit."

"Oh, well aren't you so _smart_."

He stuck his tongue out at her and jogged ahead. He slowed down just long enough to slap Curtis on the arse, pointing accusingly at Thea when Curtis cried out. Then he winked and disappeared into the building.

"What a twat," Thea grumbled.

Curtis snorted in agreement. Their moment of solidarity bought her enough civility that he held the door open for her. By the time they reached the locker room, they were back to stoutly ignoring each other.

Thea returned to her locker in the corner. She was thankful that it was secluded, hidden from most of the others. It meant she didn't have to try and interact and laugh as they traded insults about the probation worker. The only person who could see her was Nathan. That was troubling enough. Especially as she caught him eyeing her legs when she stepped out of her jeans.

"Can I help you?" she snapped. She realised her mistake just in time, continuing before he had to chance to speak. "Never mind. Don't answer that."

"Now what is that supposed to mean?" he chuckled. "I'm just trying to get an idea of what kind of photos the big guy's gonna find on your phone. But to be honest, your knickers aren't all that exciting."

"Well, if I wanted someone to be looking at them, they would be."

"Ooh! So the ones on the phone _are _lacy, is that what you're sayin'?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"…well yeah, that'd be why I asked."

Thea frowned, yanking her coveralls up over her legs.

"Um, why would he be lookin' through our phones?" asked Kelly somewhere down the aisle.

"Cause he's probably some kind of pervert," Alisha snorted. "Who else ends up in a job like that? He probably gets off looking at girl's nudies and shit."

"There's gotta be some kinda rules against that," said Nathan, shaking his head. "Laws, hopefully. Is he even allowed to take our phones? He's probably using them to call one of those sex lines."

"Those sex lines will eat your credit," Curtis informed them, making Alisha laugh.

"Call them a lot, do you?"

Whatever his response was, it made her cackle madly.

"I'm telling you," Nathan insisted, "he's out there filming himself on our phones—naked, masturbating."

He punctuated this by pulling off his shirt and winking at Thea. She unintentionally scanned his pale, lanky torso, and quickly turned back to her locker. Intentional or not, she was not giving Nathan another fraction of satisfaction today. She couldn't stand much more of his smug face.

She grabbed her package of cough drops and stuffed them in her pocket, then marched out of the locker room without waiting for the others. There was no probation worker waiting for them in the hallway, but there was a pile of buckets, brushes, and cleaning supplies. It didn't take a genius to figure out what they were supposed to do.

Thea grabbed her share of things and headed out front to the graffiti. She tied up her hair and put on her music for real this time. Hopefully some loud hip hop would be enough to drown out the world around her. She filled her bucket from the tap, poured out her paint thinner, and set up shop in front of the very first word.

_IM_

They hadn't even bothered to put the apostrophe. Truly tragic.

Pulling on her marigolds, she started scrubbing as hard as she could. The music definitely helped, but it was hard to lose herself the way she wanted to when she needed to stay so vigilant of her surroundings.

She watched the others file out of the building from the corner of her eye. It took a considerable amount of control not to flinch or freeze as they passed. The last thing she needed was for Nathan to grab her arse like he had with Curtis. His curly hair disappeared from her line of sight for a second too long, and she was certain that was exactly what he was about to do.

Thankfully, Kelly chose that moment to grab him by the shoulder and drag him past her. Thea could just hear his squawks of protest over her music, and felt the thump in the wall as Kelly shoved him into the word _KILL._ Then she turned round to catch Thea's eye and shot her a small smile.

Thea smiled back, and made a mental note to thank her later for the added protection.

Satisfied that she was not about to be tackled or groped, Thea allowed herself to focus on her work. It was…boring, to say the least. She wasn't sure there was a good way to scrub paint out of wood. It was fucking wood. The shit soaked into it. They probably would've been better off replacing the boards, or at least sanding it off. But no one was about to trust a bunch of delinquents with power sanders. Scrubbing kept them occupied and out of the way. Even if the whole thing was sodding pointless.

Whenever she needed to stretch and give her fingers a break, she would allow herself a few quick glances at her peers.

Alisha had given up scrubbing ages ago. Although it wasn't really fair to say she'd given up, seeing as she'd never picked up the brush to begin with. As soon as she'd gotten outside, she'd slid off the top of her jumpsuit and slid on a pair of sunglasses. She was currently lounging in a bikini top on one of the picnic tables, soaking up what little sun the weather had to offer.

It was annoying to be slogging away on the graffiti when she was sitting pretty to keep her nails neat, but Thea wasn't about to start a fight over it. It was a losing battle for sure. If she was lucky Kelly might back her up, but she was certain none of the boys would. Not when the alternative was the opportunity to ogle Alisha's tits whenever they wanted.

Curtis and Nathan were clearly taking advantage of the situation. Neither of them seemed to feel bad about enjoying the view when Alisha had so willingly pushed it in front of them. Simon was watching too, but only when he thought no one else was looking.

He was only a few feet to Thea's right, working on the T in _TO. _That made it easy enough to keep an eye on him. It was easily the most entertaining part of her afternoon. Simon would scrub and scrub and scrub, and then shoot a terrified glance over at Alisha's chest. It was a fraction of a second, barely enough time to make sure she had two breasts, but each time he did it he would scrub extra ferociously at the wall for ten seconds. She wasn't sure if he was punishing himself for peeking or trying to work out his sexual frustration.

She wasn't exactly surprised either way. Simon looked like the type who was wound a bit too tight. If Alisha made eye contact with him while she wasn't wearing a shirt, he'd probably blow his load right there on the side walk.

Thea wrinkled her nose and turned back to the spray paint. She didn't want to have to clean that up.

Thankfully, when something did catch her attention, it wasn't Simon's jizz or Alisha's tits.

There was a loud _clang_, making Thea jump and whirl around. Nathan's bucket was lying on its side, spilling red water all over the pavement as Nathan stumbled through the puddle. Alisha and Curtis were both laughing, and Kelly was already storming off on her own. It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened.

Thea yanked her headphones out to glare at Nathan. "What the fuck did you do?"

"I didn't do anything!" he protested. "Why do you assume I did something?"

"Because you're a wanker."

"That may be true! But it's beside the point!"

"He didn't even say anything," Alisha laughed, lifting her sunglasses to peer at Thea. "She just shoved him cause she's mental. She's just an angry chav who wants to start shit. You saw her yesterday in the locker rooms."

"Thank you!" Nathan shouted. "And she's in for some Jeremy Kyle shit so—wait, did you girls have a naked cat fight in the locker room without inviting us?"

Everyone ignored him.

"Just leave it," said Curtis. "I'm not about to get extra hours cause I pissed off looking for her."

Thea frowned, but turned back to the wall. He had a point there.

They cleaned and scrubbed for another hour or two. The paint was getting fainter, which actually made Thea feel quite accomplished, even if it was still blatantly obvious what the message said. They worked until the sun went behind the clouds again. With her sunbathing session at a close, Alisha finally decided she'd had enough.

"This is bullshit," she said to no one in particular. "If he's not even gonna check on us, why're we out here?"

"Because we're supposed to be," said Simon. "This is what they told us to do."

"Actually, no one told us to do anything," Thea observed. She was still working on the _M. _"They just left us the buckets and expected us to do what we would've been told."

"Yeah," drawled Nathan, nodding his head in agreement. "And without specific instructions, how can we really perform our duties? They can't expect us to actually behave. We're a bunch of criminals!"

Curtis laughed, taking a quick look up the street. "Break for lunch?"

Alisha was out of her seat in an instant, strutting wordlessly toward the building. Curtis didn't bother hiding the way he looked at her arse before following her.

"What if Tony comes back to check on us?" worried Simon. "I think we should stay and keep working."

"Well, if Weird Kid thinks it's a bad idea then I'm definitely in!"

Nathan dropped his brush into the bucket with a clang and skipped off after the others. Grateful for the chance to take off her gloves, Thea followed his lead.

The good thing about the community centre being a ghost town was that there really was no one to supervise them. She'd always thought there must've been some kind of staff to keep the place running, but she couldn't think of any job they'd have to do. All the little things were taken care of by the offenders, and the offenders were watched over by the probation officer. And apparently there was only one probation officer. Said a lot about the kind of funding the corrections division must be receiving from the government.

Thea took a peek through the office window on her way to the locker room. There were papers scattered over the desk, and a computer screen that had gone to sleep. Besides that, it was totally empty. Tony must've had better things to do than watch them watch paint dry. Or fade, in this case.

So she grabbed her things and followed the others into the main hall. Not interested in congregation or conversation, she hopped up a set of stairs to the next level, settling herself in the corner so she could eat her sandwich in peace.

"Hey, Candy Floss!" called Nathan, undeterred by her distance. "Interested in a game of foosball? We can play doubles! You and me against Mr. Athlete and Mr. Decidedly Not."

"I'll pass," she said coolly, before popping her earbuds in.

Nathan rested his hands on his hips, staring up at her as she pointedly ignored him. Listening to her stupid music, twirling her stupid pink hair, eating her stupid little sandwich, and then—as if she wanted to seem even more unattainable—she pulled a damn book out of her purse.

"Spoil sport," Nathan grumbled.

"Hey!" Curtis was waving at him from the foosball table. "We playing or not?"

"Patience, man! I'm coming!"

All the boys gathered around the table—Curtis on the yellow side, Nathan on red, with the other one hovering at the end like some strange, bug-eyed referee. Like foosball needed a referee.

"We putting money on this?" asked Curtis, and Nathan scoffed.

"Do I look like the kind of man who has money to blow on table football? Nah, man. This is for pure dominance. Bragging rights! Proof of testosterone!"

"…whatever."

He dropped the ball onto the field and started the game.

Neither of them were particularly good. It wasn't like Nathan came from a high class world of recreation. None of his mates had shit like this at home, and most of the pubs he frequented were barely ritzy enough to have darts. He was overjoyed to find, however, that whatever athletic prowess Curtis claimed to have must've been restrained to his legs. Nathan wasn't particularly good, but Curtis was beautifully abysmal.

Nathan won their first game without breaking a sweat, and nearly flipped the table in excitement.

"Ha ha, suck on that!"

"Shut up," Curtis snapped. "Rematch."

"Alright, man. Your funeral." He stretched out his arms dramatically, unable to stop himself from peeking up at the balcony again. "You sure you don't want in on this, Candy Floss? I'm kicking some serious arse down here!"

If she heard him, she did not acknowledge it.

Curtis was chuckling smugly behind him.

"Yeah, if you want that to go anywhere—you should probably stop calling her that, man."

"Eh, I know," said Nathan, heading back to the table. "But I don't want to use up all my material too quick, ya know? I've got Biker Barbie, but I'm savin' it for a special occasion."

He winked at the weird one, who did not seem to find it funny. He didn't seem to find much of anything funny. He just blinked all the time and made weird, ominous comments like a twat.

Curtis dropped the ball onto the court again, and Nathan did him the favour of letting his mind wander. He glanced up to the balcony, where Blondie was sitting with one leg over the edge. She swung it back and forth absently, still reading her book. He watched as she sucked her chocolate bar between her lips. Then she chomped down on it.

Nathan winced. He didn't need reminding of her paint brush demonstration.

"It's a shame more women don't commit crime," he mused, turning back to the game. "Why is that? I was really hopin' for more of a selection."

"Of what?" asked Curtis, like an idiot.

"Of girls, man! I'm just sayin' we're a bit strapped. There's three of us and three of them. Doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room. I mean, one fuck up and you're done for. That's it! Maybe we should keep one of them as a backup, yeah? In case something goes wrong. In that case it's two of them, three of us, and—I'm not being funny—but I'm guessing you drew the short straw. Bad luck."

Both of them stared at him for a moment. Then Curtis snickered, which Nathan counted as a win. He grinned widely at the weird kid, who predictably blinked back at him.

"There was four of us," he said gravely.

Again with the ominous bullshit.

"I'm talking about getting laid," urged Nathan. But it was clear the only one with any sense was the athlete. "So, how're we gonna do this man?"

"Do what?"

"Divide them up! Cause I gotta tell you, the one with all the frizzy hair? I don't see me and her gettin' it on."

Curtis laughed at that. "Cause she's beautiful?"

"No, because she'd be way too much effort," Nathan insisted. "She looks seriously high-maintenance, man. You'd have to treat her really well. Pft! But that other one…"

He trailed off, snapping his fingers in an effort to jog his memory. The pale kid pointed helpfully up at the balcony, and Nathan shook his head.

"No, no. The other one. The one who ran off."

"Kelly."

"Whatever. A couple of Bacardi Breezers, man, I reckon she'll be good to go! Of course, I might need more than a couple myself, but who's counting? That's why I say we leave her on reserve, yeah? Just in case one of the others, you know—does not come as advertised. Chavs are easy enough, and I could go either way. In the meantime, you can work on the princess, and I'll take the rock groupie."

He looked up to the balcony, just in time to catch her eye. He grinned and waved up at her. In return she flipped him off.

Curtis laughed again, shaking his head. "Man, she will eat you alive."

"Well that's what I'm talking about! With the nose ring and all that? She's probably into that hard shit—fast and dirty, _loud, _hate sex and the like. And a girl like that doesn't tap out. That's the kinda relationship where you fuck and fight and avoid talking about feelings and labels. That's the kind of low-brow shit I'm looking for. Candy Floss is a winner."

"Her name's _Thea_," Weirdo corrected, which Nathan did not acknowledge.

"And the girls," said Curtis snidely. "Do they get a say in this?"

"Oh yes, alright! It'll all be totally consensual, okay?" Nathan conceded. "But we need a battle plan! The clock's ticking! A group of young people doing mindless shit all day—face it, man! It's gonna happen! It always does! It's biology…or physics. One of those."

He glanced at the pale one for confirmation, but received absolutely no help. Both of the losers were just staring at him. Unbelievable. He had to do everything himself.

"So, do we have a deal?" he asked.

He spat in his palm and held it out to the athlete. Curtis looked down at it in disgust and shook his head.

"No."

"Fine." Nathan frowned, wiping his hand on his jumpsuit. "Then maybe I'll take all three of them, huh? And you're not invited!"

"Yeah, I see that happening," Curtis scoffed.

"Yeah, you will! Then you'll be sorry you didn't accept the deal! And then who's laughing? _Me!"_

He sneered victoriously at their dumb faces and slapped the side of the table. Then he stamped off to the vending machine. He needed a fizzy drink.

Curtis and Simon watched him go, awestruck by his audacity and sheer stupidity.

"What did he get done for?" Curtis asked, when Nathan was safely out in the hallway.

Simon shrugged. "He said he was done for eating some pick n' mix."

"Prick."

"You can say that again."

Simon and Curtis both jumped, turning round to stare up at the balcony. Thea was still holding her book, but she was watching them over the top with a smirk.

"Could you hear us this whole time?" Curtis demanded.

"Obviously," she said with a snort. "You dickheads are way more interesting than my mum's book club."

With that, she popped the last of her candy bar in her mouth.


	3. Mistakes

**TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter contains references to drug use, as well as depictions of gore and death (as seen in _Misfits _1.01). Please proceed with caution.**

* * *

Lunch had stretched from a quick break into an afternoon of slacking off. Curtis and Simon had searched the building end to end, but there had been no sign of Tony. And to quote Alisha's argument, if he could get paid for a day of doing fuck all, they might as well do the same.

They'd migrated out into the hall when foosball had lost its appeal. Seeing as Curtis had lost the game, he'd been banished to the front to deal with the buckets and brushes. Simon had curled up into a ball in the corner, clearly attempting to take up as little space and as little attention as was physically possible. Thea and Alisha had each claimed one of the ugly, blue retro couches. Alisha seemed a bit lost without her phone. She was fidgeting with a water bottle and looking on verge of some existential crisis. Thea had curled up on her side, letting her eyes flutter shut. She focused on flipping the cough sweet in her mouth, and tried her best to ignore the sounds of Nathan assaulting the vending machine.

There was a heavy clunk as he won his battle. Then a heavy squeaking she couldn't identify. Something nudged her foot, which she promptly kicked as hard as possible. Nathan yelped, and Thea squinted down at him through her eyelashes. He'd nicked one of the wheelchairs for the disabled and was rolling himself around. Prick.

"When I was in sixth form, you came to my school," said Alisha. She was also looking through her eyelashes, staring down Curtis as he put down the buckets. "You gave this big talk about athletics and all your medals and that."

"So, I'm guessin' you're not going to the Olympics?" jabbed Nathan.

Thea rolled her face into the couch cushion to smother her snort.

"Funny," Curtis shot, his glare crystal clear in his voice.

"Oh, it is! Maybe not to you, o'course. Do you want to talk about it?"

Curtis might not have been a genius, but he was smart enough not to take the bait. Unfortunately for him, the others weren't going to let that stop them. They were a bunch of unoccupied delinquents with low morals and nothing better to do. They could wait all day.

"I heard he was dealing crack," gushed Alisha, to which Nathan gave a scandalised gasp.

"_What_?" shouted Curtis. "I wasn't dealing crack!"

"No, no, no," said Nathan, "the papers said it was steroids."

Alisha hissed her disapproval. "That stuff'll shrivel your dick."

"It wasn't steroids! I'm not a cheat! That stuff in the papers was bullshit."

"Yeah, so what was it that?" asked Alisha.

A silence settled over the room as Curtis weighed his options. He seemed to sense there was no way out, because it wasn't long before he sighed.

"I got caught with a little bit of coke. All right? I messed up one time."

There was a collective groan of disappointment around the room. Even Thea shook her head into the couch. Predictable. She'd put money of "the pressures of being a renown athlete" if she could.

Alisha scoffed as well. "No one gets community service for possession."

"If it was anyone else, they'd gotten a caution," Curtis agreed. "I get two hundred hours community service and a two-year ban from athletics. They said cause of my profile they needed to send a message."

"Price of fame," Thea offered in a sing-song voice. "No such things as mistakes."

Her eyes were still closed, so she couldn't see the glare Curtis was sending her way, but the effect was still felt and received. And as always, she could count on Nathan to take it a step farther.

"You let yourself down," he scolded gleefully. "You let the kids down. You let your parents down…"

"Shut the fuck up!"

Thea's eyes snapped open just as Curtis dove across the room. She hurtled to the other end of the couch, dodging flying fists and flailing limbs as he attempted to pummel Nathan into his chair. Alisha was cackling in the corner, and Thea could only make out half of what the boys were yelling at each other. She did catch the phrases "all I ever did was train" and "shouldn't even be here." It made her roll her eyes and sink back into her seat. She should've put money on it after all.

"Hey!" Nathan wheezed from Curtis's clutches. "You can't hit someone in a wheelchair!"

Curtis cursed and shoved him back into the wall, chair and all. Nathan just giggled proudly to himself. It was truly worrying how much he thrived on chaos and dysfunction.

Alisha cleared her throat, still eyeing Curtis.

"Do you want to know what I got done for?"

"Not really," said Nathan, taking a sip of his fizzy drink.

Thea was already sitting up now, so it was harder to disguise her snort of amusement. That earned her a dirty look from Alisha, who quickly rounded on Nathan.

"Oh, cause your story's so interesting?"

"Nah, it was nothing special. I fancied some gummy cola and I didn't have the cash, so they've locked me up to atone for my crimes."

"Fascinating."

She glared at him moodily until he gave in with a dramatic sigh. He wheeled himself into the space between the couches and clasped his hands in his lap, waiting patiently. At Alisha's insistence, Curtis sat down as well, and Simon scooted over from his place on the wall.

Thea looked at the three of them all lined up. Then she looked at Alisha's spotlight-ready smile. She probably could've put money on that outcome as well.

"So me and my mate Chloe are having cocktails at this bar, yeah? And she's hassling me cause she wants to go to this party. Chloe is on one because she _thinks _Jack is doin' Lucy. Total slut fuck. So, we get in my car, I drive us to the party—ha! We go into one of the rooms, yeah? Jack's not doin' Lucy. He's doin' _Ellie_. She is a proper slut. Chloe freaks! Then I'm driving us back into town, and Chloe's all like, 'eh, I feel sick!' I'm like 'aha, aha—don't puke in my car. Do not puke in my car!' Pft. That's when the police pull us over. I'm already banned from driving, so I am like, '_fuuuck.' _But this cop, yeah? He hands me the breathalyser, and I'm like, 'Do I suck? Or…blow?'"

Alisha gave her audience a sultry smile, then dragged tip of her tongue along the neck of the water bottle.

Even from behind, Thea could tell that the effect was immediate. Nathan's wheelchair squeaked as his legs gave a small jerk, and Curtis's back had suddenly gone rigid. Over his shoulder, she could just glimpse the side of Simon's face. His eyes were locked on Alisha's mouth, his hands gripping too-tightly to the arms of his jumpsuit.

Thea bit down on one of her knuckles to keep herself quiet.

"I mean, it's insane," Alisha giggled, briefly coming up for air. "I'm totally working it, yeah?"

"Definitely," Thea agreed.

Alisha thrust the bottle into her mouth once more, now assured that she had the boys' complete attention. Thea clasped her hands behind her head and leaned back to enjoy the double tiered show. Alisha was definitely putting her heart into her performance, but it was just as fun to imagine the guy's faces from the front. Simon's eyes had widened twice their normal size, and Nathan was unconsciously leaning farther forward in his chair every second. Thea wasn't sure what was going to happen first—Nathan falling out of the wheelchair or Simon's eyes falling out of his head.

Before either could come to fruition, Alisha decided that she had worked her mineral water to completion. Her lips dragged over the cap, and she released it with a quiet pop. She dragged her tongue over lips and then sank back into the couch. Her storyteller persona snapped back into place.

"Now, I don't know if this cop is gay or what, but he tells me I'm four times over the limit. It's bullshit. I didn't even want to go to the party."

Obviously, none of the boys were in any condition to reply to her. One wrong move and their cum would probably start seeping out their coveralls. So Thea responded on their behalf with thunderous applause.

"That was spectacular. Really genius, Alisha. Shame about the cop, though."

If she thought she was ready for the look of pure venom Alisha sent her way, she was mistaken. It really was staggering.

"What? You think you can do better?"

It was a wonder Nathan didn't break his fingers trying to spin the wheelchair round.

"Y-Yeah, _please_," he begged, "please tell us that you can do better!"

"No, really," Thea insisted. "I am being genuine. It was a great performance. Incredible display of technique, _clearly_ ASBO approved."

She laughed and made a sweeping gesture to the boys. Simon nervously pulled his legs tighter to his chest. But her cheek didn't seem to be getting her off the hook.

"Go on then," Alisha challenged. She tossed the mineral water, and Thea caught it on instinct. "Show us what you've got."

Thea realised too late that she had backed herself into a very dangerous corner. Now everyone was looking at her, and everyone was expecting something different. Alisha was smug, looking for a competition that Thea didn't have the confidence to win. Nathan was practically watering at the mouth, desperate for a show that Thea had no intention of giving. Curtis was excited, because if he didn't get another demonstration he was sure to get the front row seat to a cat fight. The only person who wasn't looking at her was Simon, and that was only because he was too afraid to meet her gaze.

Backed between a rock and a hard place, Thea tapped the bottle against her lips.

"Sorry, lads. There's no following that performance. I think I'll leave the tutorials to the master."

She gave Alisha the most genuine smile she could muster, and tossed the water back to her.

"Aw, come on!" Nathan complained. "You can't give a man all that build up and not follow through."

"Actually, I can. Besides, I like my water bottles with…a little more length to them."

Then she tapped a very star-struck Nathan on the nose and plopped back into her seat.

"Pussy," Alisha scoffed, but there was no hiding the pride in her voice. Now there was no danger of being outdone, and her glare held a little less malice. "What're you in for, then?"

"Vandalism—I told you."

"Yeah, but Kelly said you were lying."

"So?" Thea laughed. "I don't know what Kelly's on about. Where's she get off pretending she knows everything anyway?"

Alisha almost seemed to buy that, until Nathan recovered use of his voice.

"No, hang on. What happened to the indecent exposure charge? The guy you supposedly assaulted in the park?"

"Jesus, I said I was fucking with you, alright? There was no guy in the park."

"Then why lie?"

"I don't know! Cause it was a laugh?"

"Yeah," said Alisha, "but why should we believe you're telling the truth now then?"

"Fucking hell, fine! Then don't! I don't give a shit."

"She's not."

Everyone turned to look at Curtis, who had also regained his composure. Thea was displeased to see that he was also looking quite confident.

"How do you know?" asked Simon.

"Just a guess." Curtis shrugged, but stared her down with an even gaze. "Those cough drops she keeps popping. I've seen guys that did that, on the team. It's a way of copin', yeah? For addicts."

Thea was too busy glaring at him to react to Alisha's surprised laugh.

"I'm not an addict."

"But it was drugs, right?" he asked. "No point hiding. That's what they got me on."

She didn't want to answer. God, anything but an answer. Why should she have to explain herself to these judgemental headcases? It wasn't any of their business.

But just like with Curtis, that wasn't going to stop them.

"Wait, did they snag you for using?" Nathan asked.

"No way," said Alisha. "A little white girl like her? She'd have to be dealing."

"I wasn't dealing!" Thea snapped. "It was forgery, alright?"

There was a pause as the others all exchanged dubious looks.

"Wait, like you was forging checks?" asked Alisha.

"No, like I was forging prescriptions. For drugs. And then giving the drugs away. For money."

"How is that not dealing?" asked Nathan.

Thea grit her teeth. This was not a conversation she had been planning on having with her work mates. Not today. Not ever.

"It's called a candy bowl," she explained, avoiding everyone's eyes. "My…I used to know a guy who'd supply for different parties. You take some rando pills from the bowl and get fucked up. Rich kids pay extra for the good stuff, so he'd charge them admission and I'd just…get him what I could. It was money, alright?"

"Um, no." Alisha was waving her hands, legs crossed in front of her. "A, that still sounds like dealing, and B, it doesn't explain how they caught you."

"I wasn't selling," she spat. "I just passed them off to this _guy_. And when I decided I didn't want to do it anymore, that _guy_ turned me in. Gave the cops the one physician name that wouldn't get him in trouble, waited for them to pick me up, and now I'm here. I pled guilty so they wouldn't go digging and root up more anymore shit."

"Bollocks," Nathan scoffed. "If he was dealing, why not sure turn him in? Cut a deal or somethin'?"

"Because he was dealing drugs that I'd nicked, you twat. They caught me on a one-off script. More than that, I was looking at jail. Are we done?"

"And the cough drops?" prompted Curtis.

If she could have melted him into the floor, she would've.

"I used to flirt with some Adderall, okay? I'm trying to kick the habit."

A nasty silence followed that, broken only by Alisha's snickering. Thea wrapped her arms over her chest, mentally kicking herself. She could've come up with a different story. She could've kept her fucking headphones on. She could've minded her own fucking business. Well, that's what she got for opening her mouth.

"Figures it would be some smart kid drug," said Nathan finally, his voice already disinterested. "You'd be better off with heroin."

Thea would've kicked him again, had the door not slammed open.

All five of them jumped as Kelly came tumbling into the room. She was running so fast that she tripped over her own feet, and promptly spilled onto the ground. Before anyone could even laugh, she was up again. She sprinted to the door and slammed it shut, fumbling frantically with the lock.

"He's gonna kill us!"

"Nice entrance," Nathan giggled, applauding. "Very dramatic!"

Nathan might've been laughing, but he was the only one. The others still seemed to be in shock, and Thea had already moved on to deep concern. Kelly was covered in sweat, her hair falling out of its harsh ponytail, her hands shaking. Judging by the state of her makeup, she'd been crying.

Thea got up from her seat. "What happened?"

"The probation worka's gone mental," said Kelly, nervously checking the door. "He jus' attacked me!"

The rest of them looked around, silently checking in with each other. They all seemed to be on the same page. Sure, Tony was a hardass, but it was hard to imagine him snapping from confiscating their phones straight to assault.

Kelly didn't seem to register their disbelief.

"Somefin' really weird is happenin'. I'm hearin' these voices in me head—it's like I can hear wat people're thinkin'!"

"Aw, have you been sniffing glue?" sang Alisha.

"The storm! The lightning! I dunno! It's jus' done somefin' to us!"

"Alright, hang on," said Thea, stepping between Kelly and the rest of the group. "One thing at a time. What kind of voices?"

"What, you believe her?" Curtis laughed incredulously.

"I just think we should let her explain!"

Thea glared at him. She wasn't going to side with any of his shit after the stunt he'd pulled on her in front of the group. And she'd been getting a lot of practice with weird shit from Marnie. The best thing to do when someone was delusional was to play along.

"I'm not delusional!" Kelly shouted, shoving Thea back from her.

"What? I didn't—That's not what I said!"

"Ya, but it's wot ya thought! I told ya, I can hear it!"

"Kelly…"

"I'm serious! Tha's how I knew you were lyin' this mornin'!"

"Anyone could've guessed she was lying," said Alisha, rolling her eyes. "She's not good at it."

"Oh, get fucked, Alisha."

"Okay," Nathan interrupted. He wheeled his chair between the middle of the group. "If you can hear our thoughts, what am I thinking now?"

"You fink it's _bullshit_!"

"Course I think it's bullshit! You don't need to be a mind reader to know that!"

Kelly glowered at him, but was quickly distracted by something else.

"Why're you in a wheelchair?"

"It was the storm," he said in a trembling voice. "The strange tingling sensation in my anus has spread through my body and now…I can't feel my legs!"

He was obviously mocking her, but for a moment it looked like Kelly was too worried to pick up on it. Then she wound up and kicked him in the shin.

"Ow! Jesus!"

"I'm serious!"

"What do you mean the probation worker attacked you?" asked Curtis.

"This does sound like complete bullshit," Alisha agreed.

"Hey," said Thea, rounding on them. "She said she's serious, alright? If anything's true, it's probably that."

"It's all true!" Kelly screamed at them. "He is out there and he chased me!"

"Something's happened to me too."

Everyone turned to look at Simon. He'd gotten up from his ball on the floor and was standing up with conviction. Well. As much conviction as a cripplingly shy weirdo could have under the circumstances. It looked impressive by Simon's standards, anyway.

"Did you pop your cherry?" Nathan asked excitedly. "Aw, we're all very happy for you!"

Thea snatched the cola can out of his hand and smacked him on the back of the head. For once though, Nathan's blabber didn't deter Simon from speaking. But Thea instantly wished it had.

"Earlier on, when we were in the locker room…I was invisible."

At a loss for words, Thea simply handed Nathan's fizzy drink back to him.

"So she's psychic, and you can turn invisible," Curtis chuckled. "Yeah, that seems likely."

"Yeah," chimed Nathan. "Did anyone witness this miraculous disappearance?"

"You were all there…"

"Right," said Alisha. "I think we _might_ have noticed you vanishing into thin air."

"You didn't," said Simon defensively. "I was standing right there. You couldn't see me. Thea almost walked through me on her way out!"

Now everyone turned to look at her instead, and Thea held up her hands. Playing into a fantasy was one thing, but she wasn't going to back up crazy. And while Kelly seemed earnest enough, Simon was clearly off his rocker.

"All right." Nathan rolled forward, clearly more than happy to begin testing again. He pushed himself right up to Simon's feet. "Go on, then. Do it. Turn invisible."

Simon looked around at them apprehensively. Then he steeled himself and took a deep breath. He stretched his head back, the veins and tendons popping out of his unnaturally pale neck. He made a strangled grunting sound as his eyes rolled back. It looked like he was trying to pop his head off without using his hands. That or take a massive shit while standing.

Thea sat down on the couch again and hid her face in her hands. This was too painful to watch.

"Oh my god," gasped Nathan, in a voice that made it very clear absolutely nothing had happened. "He's disappeared!"

"Can't…Can't you see me?" asked Simon.

"No…"

Thea looked up in time to see Nathan's empty can collide with Simon's forehead. She winced on impact. Alisha was still giggling as the can clattered to the floor.

"You're invisible!" Nathan cheered. "Yeah, you two are hilarious. Really. Keep taking that medication."

He started wheeling for the door, only for Kelly to jump in front of him.

"Don't go out there! He will kill you!"

"Of course he will! Cause he's such a badass!"

"_Don't_!"

"She's telling the truth!"

Thea's neck actually hurt from how quickly it snapped to look at Curtis. He was panting, his eyes wide with panic—a clear one-eighty from his demeanour a moment ago. Only nothing had changed.

"Oh, will you shut the fuck up?" Thea snapped, marching over to him. "It wasn't funny then and it's not funny now!"

"I'm not being funny," he insisted.

It did not stop Thea from shoving him.

"Right, you're just jumping on the bandwagon out of pure honesty. You really think you're that much better than the rest of us? God, you're such a fucking prick."

"It's true! I've seen it!"

"And you know this how?" asked Nathan. "I suppose you're psychic now too?"

"Bit unoriginal," Thea jabbed.

Curtis smacked her hands away, shaking his head.

"No—all this. It's already happened once. I open the door. The probation worker—he killed you." He looked morosely at Kelly, who now looked more terrified than ever. "You were right there. You were dead…"

"All right, that's enough," said Thea.

"I told you, it's not a joke! I saw it happen! Then everything froze. You were all just standing there. Time went backwards!"

"What are you saying?" asked Alisha doubtfully. "What, you turned back time?"

Nathan shook his head, finally climbing out of his wheelchair. "This just gets better by the second."

"Everything happened again," Curtis was still going on. "Exactly the same! I'm telling you, don't open that door!"

So of course, Nathan did it just to spite him.

"What exactly were you hoping to get from this?" Thea asked, still glaring at Curtis. "Just pull one over on…?"

Before she could finish, Nathan screamed and slammed the door shut again.

"He's right! The probation worker's gone mental!"

Thea would've yelled at him too, had a very heavy _something_ not thrown itself against the door at that precise moment.

All of them screamed this time, scrambling away from the door and huddling together in the middle of the room. The Tony-shaped silhouette outside rattled and slammed the door. It was holding for now. But the lock was just a tiny strip of metal. It probably wouldn't buy them a lot of time.

"M-Maybe he's on crystal meth," Alisha suggested. "I mean, that stuff makes you crazy! My friend Chloe did it, she nearly shagged her brother! And he's really ugly."

"If we live through this," said Thea, keeping her eyes on the door, "tell your mate Chloe that she really needs to sort out her life."

Tony slammed against the doors again, and they creaked dangerously. Thea's mind was working on hyper drive. He could easily break the glass if he wanted to. But the doors had a metal grate to deter burglaries. Then again, the doors were made out of wood. If Tony was hulked out on some kind of drugs, it probably wouldn't take long for him to rip the grate right out, screws and all. On top of all that, it looked like he was wielding some jagged, makeshift scythe. Neither subtle nor reassuring.

"The graffiti," Simon gasped on her right. "I'm going to kill you. He wrote it."

"What did I say?" Nathan jeered. "I said there was a hidden meaning…or not."

"Great!" Thea yelled over the noise. "Real helpful statement of purpose! So what the fuck do we do about it now?"

"Did anything happen to you?" Kelly asked hopefully, looking between her and Alisha.

"No," cried Alisha, and Thea shook her head.

"No, but this would be a really convenient time."

"We should call the police."

"He took our phones," Simon reminded them. "He took all our phones."

"What about the office?" suggested Thea. "There's got to be a business phone, yeah?"

"Nah, it's locked." Everyone turned to Nathan who shrugged. "I was gonna shit on his desk earlier. It's not important. We can't get in."

"Then I'll break the fucking window," Thea growled.

"Wait!" Curtis grabbed her arm before she could rush off. "He's stopped."

Everyone stared at the door apprehensively. It was quiet now, and the silhouette had vanished from the other side of the door. But Thea knew better than to walk forward. She'd seen enough horror movies. As soon as one of them got close to the door, that scythe was going to come flying through the glass and impale them like a kebab. Or they'd peek outside only to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the building. Or he'd sneak up behind them while they were looking at the wrong door.

Thea checked behind her, just to be safe. But no one was there.

"You dickhead!" Alisha rounded on Kelly. "Why did you come back here? You should've gone for help!"

"Wot d'you know, bitch?"

"Shut up, you chav."

"If you call me a chav one more time, I'll kick ya so hard in the cunt your mum will feel it!"

"Her mum will feel it?" asked Nathan. "How does that work?"

Kelly turned round to scream in his face.

"He tried ta kill me! I came back here to warn yous lot and I coulda left ya! I'm sick of every single one of you judgin' me. You can all fuck off!"

She stormed toward the front door, and Thea only just managed to grab her by the arm.

"Kelly, wait! We don't know he's gone! He could just be waiting for us."

"Whatever," scoffed Alisha. "I'm getting out of here."

"Yeah," Nathan agreed. "Out the back way! Come on!"

"No!" Thea called after them. "Don't you understand what I'm saying? We don't know where he is!"

"We can't jus' wait fa him to find us," Kelly reasoned.

Thea huffed. "I still think we should bash the office."

"Fuck's sake."

Kelly didn't have the patience to argue. She grabbed hold of the arm that was still holding her and dragged Thea after the others. Thea might've resisted, but before they were even half down the hall there was a loud squelching noise and a thump. Fearing the worst, Kelly and Thea both broke into a sprint.

Nathan was lying on the ground in a pile of dust and an unpromising dark puddle. Thea clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Oh my god, please don't be…"

"Is that blood?" Kelly demanded.

"Oh fuck!" Nathan scrambled up from the floor, his shoes squeaking with every move and his orange jumpsuit already covered in red. He looked like he was about to retch. "Jesus Christ! Fucking get it off me! Jesus!"

He frantically wiped his hands on his suit, and Thea's eyes dropped back to the floor. That was…a lot of blood. Far too much for no one to have noticed. Especially if you were a probation worker who'd been in the building all morning.

The puddle trailed back to a row of lockers against the wall. Most of them looked plain and empty. Except for the one on the end, of course. That one had blood trickling right out the vent.

Curtis walked forward, hesitantly reaching for the handle. The others subconsciously crept up behind him, following in his steps as if they didn't know what was about to happen, as if they had no idea what they were about to find…

They all screamed and jumped back as the door popped open. The dead body inside slipped partially from its confines, the head lolling forward without any support. Brown, close cropped hair was now crusted with blood. The skin was ashen and lifeless. A gaping slash reached from one ear all the way down to the collarbone. But Gary was still recognisable. Even without his hat.

"I did wonder what had happened to him," Nathan whimpered.

Nobody said anything. Thinking back on it, Thea wasn't sure she'd spared Gary more than half a thought since that morning. They were delinquents. Most of them skived off professionally. And even if he hadn't, it was likely enough he'd caused some other mayhem. Stormed out of community service and gotten arrested, out of the frying pan and into the fire. Just the thought made her sick now.

"H-He's going to kill us," Alisha sobbed, her whole body trembling. "Oh god…"

"Turn back time," Nathan commanded, glowering at Curtis. "Stop this happening."

"I don't know how it works!" Curtis cried out.

"Oh, that's great! That's really useful!"

"Knock it off," Thea ordered.

She could feel her composure slipping, the tingle in the back of her throat she always got when she watched Marnie vomit. But for the moment she was watching Alisha. Her shaking was getting worse, to the point she looked ready to topple over.

Curtis tried to block her view of the body, and rested a hand on her back. "Come on. Don't look at him."

He grabbed her hand, and immediately released a bone-rattling gasp. He wrenched Alisha's wrist into the air, wide-eyed and crazed.

"I've got to have sex with you right now!"

"Woah! Okay!" Thea stumbled away from the pair, holding onto Kelly to steady herself. "What the fuck, mate?"

"What's up with him?" asked Nathan.

And still Curtis was going.

"You're so beautiful! Let's go! Let's do it now, raw!"

"Get off me, you freak!"

Alisha shoved him so forcefully that he tripped back across the room. He doubled over, still panting, but quiet. When he lifted his head, his eyes were still wide, but more confused than crazed.

"What?" he asked innocently.

Alisha went to smack him, only for him to grab her wrist. Just like last time, Curtis shuddered and gasped. It started over from the top.

"Ah, you're so hot! I'm gonna bone you! I'm gonna shag you senseless!"

Thea had had quite enough. With a running start, she barrelled into Curtis's side shoulder first. They both skidded across the tile, Thea throwing punches and elbows while Curtis attempted to fight her off.

"Get _off_ me! What the fuck is your problem?"

"_Her_ problem?" Alisha screeched. "What the fuck is _your_ problem?"

"Me? What did I do?"

"Erm, ya said you were gonna shag her," Kelly informed him.

"And you were getting your chap out!" added Nathan.

"Shut up!" Curtis looked down at his waist, quickly doing up the front of his coveralls again. "Alisha, I didn't…"

"It was when you were touching her."

Simon was eerily calm considering the situation. He was looking at Alisha with clinical interest, inspecting her like a specimen rather than a panicked girl who had just escaped sexual assault.

Alisha stared down at her hands in horror. She looked around at the rest of them. Thea wasn't sure what sort of reaction she was looking for. The only thought ringing through her head was that Alisha was _fucked_, which she obviously wouldn't express out loud.

In a flash, Alisha reached out to press her hand against Simon's neck. He stiffened, just like he had when he'd been attempting to turn invisible. Only this time there was a vastly different result.

"I'm so hard for you," he said hoarsely. "I want to rip your clothes off and piss on your tits!"

It was a relief for all of them when Alisha removed her hand.

"What is happening to me?" she screamed. She scurried back, putting as much distance as she could between her skin and the rest of the group.

"I'm sorry," Simon apologised immediately. "I don't…sorry."

"You sick bastard," Nathan jeered, though he was clearly amused.

"What—What did I say?"

"No way," said Kelly, shaking her head. "I'm not sayin' tha' out loud."

_"I'm so hard for you. I want to rip your clothes off and piss on your tits."_

Simon's voice rang around the room. But Simon himself had not moved.

Everyone turned to look at Thea, who quickly clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Was that you?" Curtis asked her.

_"…I think so."_

The words were muffled behind her hand, but there was no disguising the way they had dropped about two octaves. It was still coming out like Simon, who was still very much not speaking. Thea wrinkled her nose.

_"Oh, I don't like that."_

"Are you joking?" Nathan was positively beaming at her. "Is that supposed to be a superpower? That's shite!"

The glass door behind him exploded, prompting all six of them to scream. Tony came tumbling through the door frame, scythe first, and landed hard in the pile of broken glass on the floor. He roared like an animal, struggling to get up. He lifted his head, and for a split second Thea got a glimpse of his face. It was contorted with rage, covered in blood, and his eyes—his eyes had changed from dark brown to an unsettling, inhuman green.

They scattered to the walls before he could recover his stance. Thea grabbed Alisha by the back of her jumpsuit and dragged her toward the hall, while Curtis and Simon dove off in opposite directions. Nathan hardly moved at all, just standing in one spot to scream his lungs out. The only one of them who wasn't completely useless was Kelly.

_WHAM!_

Tony fell to the floor with a huff, face down in the glass and blood. Thea couldn't do anything but stare—first at him, and then at Kelly looming over him with a paint can. It fell to the floor with a dull clunk, dented and coated in red. Not unlike Tony's head.

Each one of them took a tentative step forward. Together they peered down at the limp body.

"What did you do?" breathed Nathan, turning to gape at Kelly.

Kelly couldn't bring herself to say anything at all.

Alisha was still cowering behind Thea. "I-Is he dead?"

Thea nodded. She would've patted Alisha's arm in comfort, had it not just be proven that was a terrible, terrible idea.

"I'm no doctor," said Nathan, "but you see the way the back of his head is caved in like that?"

"CHAV!"

They all screamed in terror again as Tony jumped to life. Most of them jumped back—but Kelly wasn't fast enough. He grabbed her by the ankle, grunting and spewing spittle and blood. He might've pulled her down, or chomped on her leg like some sort of zombie. But he'd picked the wrong word to scream.

Kelly snapped, and rammed her foot down onto his skull.

"I! Am! Not! A! Chav!"

She kicked him with every word. It was like she'd gone into a rabid trance, just like Tony. Thea had to spin around, a hand clamped over her mouth again. Just the sound was enough. She could hear the bone of Tony's skull crunching and splintering, imagine the blood spewing around on the floor. She didn't need to see it too.

The moment passed, and all the sound faded away. All that was left was another terrible, sickening silence. It was only broken by terrified gasps, a few whimpers or groans as reality set back in.

"Yep," Nathan whimpered somewhere behind her. "That should do it…"

Then Alisha, right at her shoulder. "You killed our probation worker!"

"This is very, very bad…"

Thea chanced a glance over her shoulder. Tony was crumpled in the middle of the time, all his limbs at uncomfortable angles. Where the skin was still intact, it was slick with blood. Everywhere else was open wound and flesh. The back of his head had gone from a dent to a hole. And now his face was concaved as well.

Her hand was simply not enough.

Thea fled to the wall, barely holding herself upright as she spewed acid and bile onto the floor.

"Aw, don't do that!" Nathan cried. "I'm a sympathetic vomiter! I'll chunk too!"

"I feel sick too," said Alisha.

"I 'ad to!" Kelly cried out. "He woulda killed us!"

"We should call the police," Curtis instructed. "It was self-defence!"

"Yeah!" Alisha agreed. Her voice was breathless with hope. "Y-Yeah, yeah, he's right! Look, we show him the dead boy in the locker, they'll do some CSI shit and figure it all out!"

"They won't believe us!" argued Kelly.

"We just tell them the truth," said Curtis. "We stick to our story!"

"And wot's our story? Tha' he can turn invisible and tha' you can turn back time? It doesn't matta wot we tell them! They'll say we're lyin'! They'll say tha' we killed 'em both! No one's gonna believe ya, not anymore!"

Thea opened her mouth to agree, but the panic rising in her chest just forced out more bile. She choked on her own spit, struggling to breathe. Her tears were already blocking up her nose.

"If there's no body, there's no crime."

They turned to Simon, who Thea could barely make out through her watery eyes. He'd recovered the fastest, looking down at Tony with the same studying look he'd given Alisha.

"We should bury them under the flyover," he continued, flattening down his bangs.

"Yeah?" challenged Alisha. "How do we do that? Someone's gonna see us!"

"No, no, no, no, no!" Nathan shook his head frantically, skittering into the middle of the group. "Right? We just give them a quick little—" he paused to whistle and make a wiping motion with his hands "—right? We put 'em in those wheelchairs, we wheel 'em up there, and if anyone sees us we're just a bunch of young offenders takin' a coupla specials for a walk in the sunshine!"

"That could work." Thea's voice was hoarse, and she wiped her chin on the back of her hand. "We'd have to cover their faces…a lot, but…that could work."

"Oh, now you're fir to help?" Curtis asked with a derisive laugh. "A minute ago you were spilling your guts in the hall!"

"Oh, I'm _so_ sorry," she growled at him. "Sorry we're not all so calm, cool and collected when staring at a dead body we just watched _die_."

Curtis shut his mouth after that. No one else piped up.

"The point is, Kelly's right. No one's going to believe a bunch of delinquents in for community service."

"But it's the truth," Alisha insisted.

"It's not about the truth! You think because you watch a lot of telly that all the police are kind-hearted heroes who want the truth? At the end of the day, it's not just about evidence. It's about who you are. And none of us are what you'd call reliable witnesses."

They stood in a circle—staring at the bodies, at each other, at the wreck on the floor. It wasn't the right thing to do. But the longer they stared, the more it sank in that 'right' wouldn't be the way to survive.

"Are we really doing this?" asked Curtis. The bravado had left his voice, leaving it hollow and weak. "Like…really doing it?"

"We have to," said Simon solemnly. "It's the only way."

"I'm in," said Kelly.

The others nodded, and finally Curtis sighed. "All right. Who's moving the bodies?"

Nathan was the first to touch his nose, followed in quick succession by Kelly, Thea, and Alisha. Simon was looking around in confusion, and Curtis closed his eyes in expression of pure exasperation.

"Fine! Someone just get the stupid chairs."

He and Simon stepped closer to Tony, while the rest of them edged down the hallway.

"Come on, Barbie," said Nathan. He took Thea by the arm, helping her upright and patting her on the back. "You look like you could use a little polishin' too."


	4. Totally Normal

"Good mornin'! Beautiful mornin', isn't it? Hello there!"

"Would you shut the fuck up?"

Thea smacked Nathan as furtively as she could, shooting a wide smile to the mother and son who were passing them on the sidewalk. The mother took her son by the arm, and hurriedly dragged him away. Not that Thea could blame her. Nothing more terrifying than six offenders in orange jumpsuits with two disabled citizens in wheelchairs.

"What's wrong with sayin' hello?" asked Nathan, glancing back over his shoulder. "I'm just being friendly! You know, normal? Casual?"

"Wot ya doin' is drawin' attention," Kelly complained. "So do us all a favour and keep ya mouth shut."

Nathan stuck his tongue out at her, urging Gary's wheelchair a bit faster. This made Gary's head slip forward a few more inches, which nearly dislodged the scarf they had wrapped around his head. Nathan hurriedly tugged it back into place. He slapped the corpse bracingly on the chest.

"This is fucking ridiculous," Alisha grumbled. She was trudging along between Nathan and Curtis, who was pushing Tony's body. "I mean, whose idea was it to stick him in a shawl?"

"Sorry," said Simon, trailing behind her. "There…wasn't a lot in the lost in found."

"What happened to his hat?" Thea hissed.

Simon blinked at her with wide blue eyes. "It was soaked with blood."

"…Right. Probably not the best disguise then."

"Can all of you shut up?" Curtis snapped.

The group lapsed into silence.

It was obvious why Simon had chosen the flyover as a body dump site. It took them far too long to get there, which meant it wouldn't be a likely hot spot for the investigation. And besides the occasional gang member or street artist, no one would be stopping by. Even if someone did notice a patch of fresh dirt, the kind of miscreants that hung out under the flyover would be know better than to go snooping.

Kelly dropped the duffel bag she'd been lugging from the community centre, pulling out the few shovels she'd scavenged from the janitor's closet. There were only three, but they'd agreed to take it in turns. There were six of them. It shouldn't take too long, right?

That had been something of an oversight. However easy Thea might've thought it would be to dig a hole six feet deep, it was as least twice as hard. Every time she sunk her shovel into the dirt, more dirt seemed to slide down in its place. The ground was hard and difficult to break up. Her hands were blistering, and her back felt about ready to split in two. Still, she wasn't the worst off. No one could do worse than Alisha, she figured. The party girl was trying to dig a grave in ballet shoes.

"Isn't this deep enough?" she despaired.

They'd been digging for what felt like hours, and the hole came up to her ribs. Everyone turned to look at Simon. He seemed to be their resident murder buff.

He blinked in surprise and nervously swiped the dirt off his cheek. "That should be deep enough."

"Finally! Now can one of you help me out of here?"

Alisha put her arms up, but none of them moved. No one was going to volunteer to touch the girl whose skin turned you into a rapist.

"Oh for God's sake," Thea huffed.

She undid her cuffs, rolling down her freakishly long sleeved until they covered her hands. Then she leaned down to grab Alisha round the wrists and hauled her out of the ditch. She did not say thank you. Thea did not say your welcome. But they nodded at each other, and turned back to the bodies.

"Well?" asked Curtis. "What we waiting for?"

Nathan and Kelly heaved the wheelchairs over. They counted to three and then tipped the bodies into the hole. They fell with an awkward crunch, one after the other. Thea closed her eyes and tried to breathe through her nose. It would be very, very bad to vomit at the body dump. Talk about a forensic nightmare.

It was a relief when Nathan broke the silence.

"I'm pretty sure this breaches the terms of my ASBO."

"We don' tell anyone about this, yeah?" said Kelly. "About the storm, or wot it did ta us, or anyfing!"

"Nothing?" Thea asked.

"We're about to bury our probation worker," Nathan said incredulously. "We don't need to be drawin' any attention to ourselves."

"I'm not saying we should go public or anything, it's just…this is _a lot_ to deal with. A lot to hide. None of you have anyone you want to tell about the storm?"

"Easy for you to say," Alisha shot. "What can you do? Impressions? I don't want _anyone_ to know about me. I cannot be a freak."

Thea held her tongue. There was no arguing with a point like that.

"Wot bout you?" Kelly asked, nodding to Curtis.

He was standing silently on the other side of the ditch. His hands were balled into fists at his sides. You could practically see the fury and bitterness seeping out of him in waves.

"There's no goin' back now, man," warned Nathan, shaking his head. "You're just as screwed as the rest of us. You're black _and_ famous! You're probably more screwed!"

"I shouldn't even be here," he hissed, and Thea rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, so we've heard. We all make mistakes, all right? So what's it gonna be?"

Curtis glared at her. He picked up a shovel by way of answering, and began to toss the dirt back on top of the bodies.

Thea rolled up her sleeves again, nodding at the shovel in Alisha's hands in invitation. But Alisha stormed past her, spearing the trowel into the dirt instead.

"Jus' then," Kelly asked her, "when he woz touchin' ya, how were ya doin' that?"

"I don't know."

Like Curtis, the ferocity of Alisha's digging made it clear that the conversation was over. It would've been left better that way. If any of them had any sense.

"Didn't you say you wanted to piss on her tits?" Nathan glanced back at Simon, whose eyes immediately dropped to the ground. "Yeah, probably best to keep that kind of thing between you and your internet service provider."

Thea sent a swift kick at his ankle to shut him up. But Alisha had already stiffened and froze.

"You alright?" asked Curtis.

She huffed, and sunk her shovel into another pile of dirt.

"Wot about you?" Kelly asked, nudging Thea. "When ya were copyin' Simon?"

"Dunno," said Thea. "I wasn't even trying to sound like him. Just repeat it."

"It's called mimicry," explained Simon. "You can duplicate other people's voices, probably just by hearing it."

"So 'ow's it work?" asked Kelly. "She's jus' gotta repeat em? Or can she do it wheneva?"

"I—I don't know. I just saw it in a film."

"A film?" Curtis repeated. "What superhero's got that crap power?"

"No, it—it was _Beetlejuice_. They…also do it in _Mission Impossible_."

"Oh, well that's real helpful," Thea sighed. "Well we already know you can't do yours on command. Or Curtis. What about you, Kelly?"

"I can't figure it," she complained. "Is not like I can 'ear it all the time. Sometimes I jus' look at someone and i's like I'm hearing their voice in they head. Even if I don't want to."

"So maybe it's just about your focus," Thea suggested. "Like, whoever you're paying attention to."

"Well, I hate it. It's shite hearing wot people fink about ya. Ma boyfriend, ma dog…"

"You can hear dogs?" Alisha asked with a laugh. "That has got to be rank."

"Is not funny!" Kelly insisted. "It woz doin' mah head in! I thought I woz proper loony!"

If anything, this made Alisha giggle harder. Thea couldn't repress a snort. That earned her a good whack from Kelly, but when Thea looked, she was smiling.

"Oh go on, then," said Thea. She stood back, her arms open wide. "What am I thinking then?"

Kelly squinted at her, then snorted.

"That Nathan's a twat."

"Oh, hardy har har," Nathan called over everyone's snickering. "Very original. It's not funny."

_"Oh, hardy har har!" _Thea mocked in his Irish brogue._ "Very original. It's not funny."_

Nathan took a swipe at her with his shovel. "Neither was that!"

"Nah," Kelly disagreed with a smirk, and everyone around the grave giggled. "Everyone fought that was pretty funny."

"Ah, screw the lot of you. What kind of bullshit power is mimicry supposed to be, anyway? What're you gonna do? Mock someone to death?"

"Oh, my apologies, Captain Fuckwad! And what is it you do again?"

The reality of this statement seemed to hit Nathan all at once, his face dawning with absolute horror.

"No, no, no! Hang on! That's not fair! How is it that all of you have some kind of "special power" and not me? Everyone can do something, except me! He can do something—_He_ can do something and I can't? That's ridiculous! Look at him! How does that make any sense?"

He brandished a furious finger at Simon, who flatted his bangs again. If it's been Thea she would've decked him, but Simon just shrugged his shoulders, his eyes downcast.

"Maybe you can do something. You just haven't found out what it is yet."

"Yeah," Nathan sighed, with something of relief. He promptly stopped digging, leaning on his shovel. "Right! What if I can't feel pain?"

It seemed Kelly was smacking him upside the head before he'd even finished the question.

"Did ya feel that?"

"Ow! Stop hitting me!"

"Word of advice, then?" Thea smiled, prying the shovel from Nathan's hand and making him stumble slightly. "Stop talking."

She elbowed him out of her way to take his place at Alisha's side. She kicked the shovel into the dirt with the heel of her boot, and began to dump the soil back into the grave.

Behind her, Nathan yelped as Kelly smacked him again.

"Ugh! And stop finking, you prick!"

Filling the ditch took a lot less time than making it. Still, by the end Thea felt about ready to drop. Every one of her muscles ached, and she was sure she's pulled something in her back. Her boots were scuffed, her hands were red, and she was covered head to toe with dirt. She had no idea what they were going to tell anyone if they bumped into someone on the street. All of them were absolutely filthy.

In that respect, the orange jumpsuits actually came in handy. Anyone they saw on the street immediately averted their eyes. They crossed to the other side of the street. They raised their voices and pretended not to see them. Everyone had already been programmed to avoid them. No one was going to stop a group of no good hoodlums and ask for a little chat.

Thea had been nervous about the community centre, but it was exactly as they'd left it. That is to say, totally empty. Although there was another problem that presented itself as soon as they arrived back—they had left something of a crime scene behind.

The six of them stood in the hall, all staring down at the floor in disgust.

"Does anyone else think this is like...a suspicious amount of blood?" asked Nathan.

"God," Alisha groaned. "I am so sick of cleaning."

"Aw, suck it up," said Kelly. "I ain't goin' ta prison cuz you don't wanna scrub tha floor."

"Let's just get it over with, yeah?" said Curtis.

He doubled back down the hallway, grabbing the buckets and brushes from that morning and passing them out. He pushed Thea's into her chest with more force than was strictly necessary, and nodded to the tile in the hall.

"Why don't you start there?" he suggested. "Cause I am not cleaning up your sick."

"Oh no," Thea huffed sarcastically. "My master plan. Whatever will I do?"

She started down the hall, Kelly and Alisha trailing after her reluctantly.

"You know," Nathan was musing, "now that I think about it, the men's loo was a real mess this morning too. I wonder if that had anything to do with anything."

"So were the showers," added Simon. "That's where I found Gary's cap."

"All right," said Curtis. "So we'll take the toilets, and you lot stay in the hall."

Thea held up her middle finger in acknowledgement, already on her way to the taps to fill her bucket.

Cleaning was a better directive than disposing of a body. It wasn't all that different from their morning—with the exception of Alisha's involvement, perhaps. With her life and freedom on the line, she was dutifully washing the floors. Thea cleaned up her vomit and then moved to join her. Kelly was working on the locker, the scythe, even the paint can she'd used to bash Tony's head. All three of them scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing away at the blood red.

The boys stayed in the bathroom for almost as long. The only time they emerged was when Nathan and Curtis carried a stall door out to the dumpster. What was left of a stall door, anyway. A good chunk of it was missing, misaimed hatch marks around the edge. Thea couldn't bear to look at it for too long.

They all cleaned until the floor was suspiciously spotless. Then, just to be sure, they toured the building top to bottom. One spot of blood would be enough to screw them over. One overlooked detail and they were done. Or as Nathan so eloquently insisted on putting it, becoming bitches in the wrong cell block.

Then there was the matter of their phones. No one would let Thea break the window to the office. It wouldn't make any sense to leave a scene like that behind after they'd cleaned the rest of the building. But no one had a good way into the office. Out of the six, none of them were in for theft or breaking and entering, so no one had any idea how to pick locks. Simon and Curtis both tried for a few minutes. So did Nathan, though his technique was pretty similar to the way he'd attacked the vending machine. In the end, they accepted that they'd have to leave their phones behind. It would probably make them look more innocent that way anyway.

It wasn't until hours later that they found themselves back in the locker room. They stood in a circle, each of them back in their own clothes and as free of dirt as they could hope to be. They'd settled for washing in the sinks. No one had been able to stomach the showers after Simon had scrubbed them clean.

"So…tomorrow…" started Curtis.

But whatever was meant to follow never came. None of them could finish the thought. It would be a wonder if any of them could form a thought at all. Thea hoped that she wasn't the only one reeling. The day had been so wild that none of it felt real.

"Tomorrow," Simon repeated. And that was the thought in full.

With one last communal nod, they all drifted out of the community centre. It was just like the day before. So similar that Thea let herself believe that it was. That it had been her very first day, and she was on her way home to watch animated children's movies and eat overpriced takeaway with Marnie. Nothing had changed. And nothing would.

She'd made it a block before she realised that someone was following her. Her panicked nausea rose again, certain she was about to get nailed, only to recognise the lurking figure several paces back. Her panic ebbed, but the nausea remained.

"What do you want, Simon?"

She regretted how harsh it came out. At the same time, she didn't. Surely he couldn't blame her for being touchy after the day they'd had. And he hadn't even bothered to announce himself.

Simon flattened his bangs, avoiding her eyes.

"I just…I—I was wondering if maybe you…wanted to watch the film…"

"What?"

"Uh…_Beetlejuice_…I own it, and I thought…maybe you'd like to see it."

Thea prayed that her immediate distaste for the suggestion was not apparent on her face. Not because she was worried about sparing his feelings, but more so because she did not have the energy to deal with the fallout.

"Right. Not today, Simon. I don't know if you've noticed, but it's been kind of…long."

"Right," he agreed, shaking his head so quickly it looked more like his skull was vibrating. "Sorry, that was stupid."

"And I promise, I've seen _Beetlejuice_," she added, with all the smile she could muster. "Not exactly a how-to on voice manipulation, ya know?"

"Yes. I just thought…"

"It's like Alisha said. It's just impressions. I think I'll be fine. I just want to go home and…pass out. Get pissed and try and forget literally everything that happened today. You should probably do the same."

Simon nodded, staring down at the ground. She resisted the urge to pat him on the shoulder. Instead she lifted her hands in a terribly awkward thumbs-up.

"Great," she said. "Um…see you tomorrow, then."

Thea scrambled to put her headphones in and started back down the road. She just wanted to put as much distance as possible between herself and that conversation, as well as the building behind it.

It was already getting dark by the time she got back to the flat. She fiddled with her keys as she approached the door, her will to open it suddenly vanishing. She laid an ear against the wall. The telly was on inside, but she couldn't hear anything else. Marnie was probably sitting on the couch, already in her pyjamas for the night, stuffing as many crisps in her mouth as she could before Thea got home from service.

Thea stuffed her keys back in her purse. Down the hall, up the stairs—she didn't stop until she'd reached the top level. She had to slam her shoulder into the heavy door for it to open, and then she walked out onto the roof.

No one was out here. No one ever was. It was a relief, but also something that never made any sense to her. What could be better than a smoke in the night air with a view? Alright, so it wasn't the Eye. This wasn't the tallest building on the Estate, and everything was still foggy and dirty and broken. Old lawn chairs laid in shambles along with broken plant pots and piles of cigarette butts. But you could look down on the street, get a glimpse of the city, even see all the way to the lake if you craned your next. At the end of the day, this was the one place Thea could come where everything wasn't grey. At sunset the world turned pink.

She perched herself on an upturned milk crate, taking a long drag from her cigarette. It wasn't the nicotine that helped, really. It was the forced normality of it all. It was just the end of another day, in a long line of days, and there would be more days tomorrow and even after that. And the smoke helped her control her breathing. Inhale, and then exhale, blowing the smoke as far as she could for as long as she could. Until it dissipated into nothing.

Fuck, smoking made her existential.

Thea snorted, hiding her face in her free hand. God, she was fucked. She was so, so fucked.

The cigarette burned down, keeping her grounded right on the verge of tears. She reached for her phone, then remembered she didn't have it. Her probation worker had locked it up and died before he could give it back.

She stamped her cigarette out on the ground.

When the world finally became too cold, she forced her legs to carry her back down the stairs. She let herself into her flat, only for Marnie to materialise in front of her instantaneously.

"There you are! I've been worried sick! I only called you six times!"

"Sorry, Mum," Thea said with a smile. "Probation worker took our phones and fucked off for the day. Looks like I won't get it back until tomorrow."

"What a wanker," she huffed. "What the hell is he thinking keeping you there this late?"

"Dunno. Suppose community service workers are a bit second class to him."

Thea wanted to hide in her bedroom, but Marnie wouldn't let her pass. She took her gently by the shoulders, peering into her eyes with unsettling intuition. That was the price of spending so much time together. It was very hard to hide.

"Is everything alright?" Marnie asked. "You look awful."

"Thanks for that," Thea snorted, which earned her a glare.

"You know what I mean. You look dead tired and just…off. Did something happen?"

Thea bit her lip.

"It was just some stupid graffiti. Someone thought it'd be funny to put a death threat on the side of the community centre. Been scrubbing at it all day. Just makes you think..."

"That people are rubbish?" Marnie suggested. "Cause they are. And I will find that person, and I will murder them if you like."

Thea's smile crept back into place. "See? I told you. Pregnancy's making you violent."

She kissed Marnie on the cheek and pushed past her.

"I've got to take a shower," she called back over her shoulder. "You feel like ordering pizza?"

"Wow, you must've had a shit day. Take away two days in a row?"

"Do you want it or not?"

"Of course I fucking want it."

Even from her bedroom, Thea could still hear Marnie grumbling to herself as she dialled the phone. She closed her eyes, focusing on the normality of it as hard as she could. Just a few more minutes. She just had to make it a few more minutes.

She grabbed her clothes and walked back out to the sitting room, pausing to raise the volume on the telly. Then she ducked into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

She chanced a look at herself in the mirror. Marnie was right. She did look different. How stupid that everyone else could notice. No telling herself it was just what she knew. No telling herself that it was all in her head. And still, looking at her reflection, she couldn't pinpoint what it was. Her face was still the same shape. Her hair was still the same colour. Her makeup was still applied the same. But behind it all, she looked exhausted.

If she had to pick one thing, it was the feeling that her clothes didn't belong to her. Yesterday she'd taken comfort in the soft flannel at the end of the day, happy to get away from the bright orange jumpsuit. Now the flannel felt like a luxury she couldn't afford. She deserved that orange jumpsuit. That was who she was now.

Thea glared at herself in the mirror. Why the fuck did she have to make everything so melodramatic? She wasn't even the one who'd killed Tony. She'd moved the body for her own survival. How was that any different from everything else she'd done in her life? The wrong thing for the right reason. Just leave it at that.

She stripped off her clothes with just a tad too much fervour, and hid under the water. She was furious with herself. Furious for fucking up, furious for her reactions, furious for being furious. It was doing her head in. Fuck, she couldn't wait to be unconscious. When had her life become such utter shite?

She tried to regulate her breathing. She tried to focus on the normality. She tried to shut down her brain. But alone in the shower, Thea's dam finally broke. She bit down on her hand and did her best not to sob too loud.


	5. Proof of Life

Thea was cold, and she couldn't breathe. Every time she tried it was like something was falling in her mouth. Something was smothering her with every breath. She tried to beat it back, but it was binding her hands too. Dirt. So much dirt. In her eyes, in her nose, in her throat. She couldn't push it away. She was suffocating.

There was a rattling gasp to her right. She rolled on her side, squinting to see what it was. Then she screamed.

She rocketed up in her bed, panting and pawing at the sheets that were tangled over her head. The moment her head broke free, she regretted it. It was fucking freezing. Her window was closed, but the chill still seemed to be seeping through the walls.

Thea took a few gulps of fresh air and flopped back down to the mattress. She shivered, and wrapped her blankets tighter around her limbs.

_"Just fix the fucking heat—ah!"_

She yelped again, pulled her covers up over her mouth. Her voice was far deeper than it should have been. Why was her voice so deep? Why didn't she sound like herself? What was going on?

In dizzying succession, the previous day's events played back in her mind. The storm. The graffiti. The attack. Gary. Tony. Her power. The grave. Ah, yes. Fuck.

She echoed this thought out loud, distressed to find that she was still speaking in Tony's voice. That alone would have been enough to make her sick. Tony was dead, and here she was borrowing his voice. It felt wrong, out of context. That deep voice was meant to be scolding youths, giving rousing speeches about responsibility and redemption—not cursing out the radiator in her shitty flat.

Of course, she had no idea how to turn it off. Before she could even attempt, there was a loud rapping on her door.

"Thea?" Marnie let herself in, hurrying over to the bed. "Are you alright? I hear you scream."

_"Hm…"_

Panicking, Thea threw herself in a coughing fit. Even that sounded too deep. She hacked and wheezed until Marnie was flapping her arms in a frenzy.

"Oh my God! Oh my God, are you okay? Are you choking? Are you dying? Do you want some water?"

Thea nodded furiously, miming a glass. Marnie hightailed it out of the room.

_"Shit,"_ Thea cursed in her new, deeper voice. _"Okay, focus. Just don't think about him. Think about you. Think about you."_

It was impossible. There was no way she could just stop thinking about Tony. She'd just watched the man die yesterday, and if anyone found out, her life was equally as over. She could _not _let Marnie hear her like this. There would be no way to explain herself. Marnie would have a thousand questions, and if she ever got the answers, she'd probably go round the twist with worry. Then Thea would be _really_ fucked. Where would Marnie live if she when to jail? What if something happened to the baby? And it was all Thea's fault?

As it turned out, this train of thought was not particularly effective in calming her down. She'd barely been able to stop herself hyperventilating before Marnie was tumbling back into the room and pushing a cup of water into her hands.

She had to slow down. Thea closed her eyes, trying to focus on the way the water felt going down her throat instead of the way Marnie was staring at her apprehensively. She could feel her heart rate going down, feel the breath hovering in her chest. Besides that, she didn't feel any different.

"Crisis averted?" Marnie asked, taking the cup back from her.

Thea held up a finger. Then she opened her mouth and belched.

"Oh, gross," said Marnie, her face scrunching with disgust and delight. "Well job."

"Uh…" Thea tried to hum, testing her vocal chords as quietly as she could. But it seemed that her own voice back in place. Overcome with relief, she beamed. "Thank you. Thank you very much."

"You're alive then?"

"Yeah, for the time being," she sighed. "Assuming I don't freeze while getting dressed."

"Hm, well if you do, make sure you get your knickers on. Want to preserve your modesty when I send your corpse to the Science Museum."

Thea flinched at the word _corpse. _She did her best to pass it off as another shiver.

"That's rude of you," she jabbed as a diversion. "Are you saying you wouldn't put my clothes on if I passed off stark naked?"

"Nope!" Marnie said brightly, and patted her on the knee. "If there's one thing I've learnt from daytime telly, it's that you don't mess with a crime scene. It'll be straight to the coroner with you. So do yourself a favour and get dressed, alright? Don't want you to be late to service again."

"Whatever, Mum."

They stuck their tongues out at each other, and Marnie returned to the living room. Thea waited until she was out of sight to flop back onto her bed. There were no words to describe how much she _did_ want to be late to service again. She didn't want to go at all. Maybe she could sell enough of her belongings to buy a train ticket instead. She could flee to Scotland, begin her life on the lam. It had to be better than prison, right? Even if they got away with it, it would probably be better than scrubbing paint and picking up litter.

But the daydream was short lived. If she didn't show up to the community centre, she'd been in custody before she could hail a taxi to the train station. And that was before anyone had even found out about the murder.

She did her best not to think as she got dressed. She wasn't ready to face the odd sense of alienation her leather jacket had given her last night. It was too much to deal with so early in the morning. So she threw on the first few things she grabbed, rushed her makeup, and fled out of the room.

"What happened to the fishnets?" Marnie asked, a sceptical eye on Thea's torn jeans.

"Are you joking?" Thea snorted. "I'm freezing. Besides, you were the one who told me to go with trousers."

"Hm. And that's all?"

"Yeah. Why wouldn't it be?"

Marnie was considering her quietly. She was leaned back against the wall, looking casual—but at the same time very clearly blocking Thea's path to the front door. Whatever she wanted to say, Thea wouldn't make it out of the flat without hearing it.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Marnie finally asked.

"Marnie," Thea sighed, without missing a beat. "I've told you, I'm fine. Promise."

She smiled, and after a few moments, Marnie smiled back.

"You know we've known each other for more than a decade now? Seven years old. Back when you were helping me cheat maths in Mrs. Burnwile's class."

"I was not cheating," Thea maintained. "I did not realise we were having an exam. I thought I was just being helpful."

"That's what you always say."

"Because it's the truth!"

"All right! Fine, whatever," Marnie laughed, waving her hands. "It doesn't matter. My point is, I've known you more than half my life. Enough to know when you're lying."

Thea opened her mouth to argue, only for Marnie to shut her down.

"It's fine. I'm not trying to mum you into talking to me. We both know you're the mum friend. But…I'm here if you need, yeah? Whatever it is, you don't have to do it alone."

It was difficult for Thea to hold her tongue. She did want to tell Marnie. The fact of the matter was that she probably would at some point or another. She wasn't sure how much, and she wasn't sure when, but it was something of an inevitability. The only thing she did know was that she could not do it now, for her own sake at the very least.

"You're wrong, you know?" Thea said softly. She walked over, poking Marnie in the stomach. "You're going to be the mum friend soon enough."

"Very funny," said Marnie, smacking her hand away. She pulled a bag of cough sweets out from behind her back, shaking them pointedly before handing them over. "Don't forget to take these today. Especially after that scene this morning."

"Thanks, _Mum._"

"You know, it's a wonder you can even get a cough considering how often you eat those things."

"I don't know, _Mum_."

"Do ya think they're affecting your throat? Like you had too many and now your oesophagus is all brittle and dry and fucked up?"

"Goodbye, _Mum_."

The world beyond their flat was exactly as it had been the day before. Grey sky, identical buildings, dirty pavement. Thea couldn't decide whether it was comforting or mocking her. She knew things weren't the same, and she couldn't pretend they were. But in the scheme of things, what did it all matter? The world would keep turning anyway.

She smoked on her walk, doing the best to keep the shakes out of her hands. And when the cigarette burned out, she switched to cough drops. She slipped on hear headphones, but was so distracted that she forgot to press play on her iPod. She'd made it all the way to the community centre before she'd noticed.

Kelly was already waiting outside. Her arms were folded up on the barrier while she looked out over the lake, nursing her own smoke. Thea almost walked past her. But she hadn't had an easy night, or morning for that matter. She couldn't imagine Kelly had it any easier.

"Morning," Thea sighed, stopping a few feet down the railing.

Kelly looked over, offering a small smile. It was a fragile thing, something of a contrast to the brash personality she'd shown off the past few days. It almost made Thea regret stopping. She wouldn't want anyone to see her like that if she were in Kelly's shoes. Fuck pity.

Then she remembered that Kelly could probably hear her thoughts. Thea cursed.

Kelly snorted indelicately, looking back over the water.

"How's ya night?" she asked.

"Um…good."

"Yeah," Kelly agreed. She didn't need to read minds to know that was a lie. "Mine was shite too."

"Your powers acting up? Or just because…"

"All of it. Wot bout you?"

"Same. Woke up sounding like Tony, which was spectacular. Nearly coughed up a lung trying to hide it from my flatmate." That made Kelly laugh, and Thea gave her a wry smile. "Whatcha think? Maybe no one shows up to replace him and we all skive off again?"

"Nah, they're already here," said Kelly. She jerked her head back toward the building. "Some lady unlocked the doors fa us. Everyone's gone in. Guess I jus' thought…"

"Put it off long as possible," Thea finished for her. "Well, I'm all for it."

She dropped her bag on the pavement and hopped up to sit on the railing. Kelly grinned, offering her pack of cigarettes. Thea waved her off, then stuck out her tongue to show the cough sweet she was still working on. Kelly nodded.

"Why ya always eatin' those?" she asked, turning to lean her side on the barrier. "Ya like sick or somefin?"

Thea blinked at her, surprised. But then she remembered. Kelly had been running for her life yesterday. She hadn't been around for that part of the afternoon.

"Around fa wot?" Kelly demanded.

"Nothing," Thea assured her. "While you were…out, we were just hanging in the hallway. Swapping backstories and shit."

"Fa real?" asked Kelly incredulously.

"Trust me, I didn't want to. But Alisha and Nathan were taking the mickey out of Curtis until he gave it up. Then Alisha wanted to brag about her DUI, and then Curtis sold me out. Because he's a _massive_ dick."

"Tha's fooked up," Kelly observed. "Sorry I asked."

"It's fine. Don't think there's any point lying to you, right?"

She tapped her temple with a smirk. However, Kelly didn't seem to find it very funny.

"I's not like I do it on purpose, okay? Trust me. If I could stay outta ya foughts, I would. I hate knowin' fings I shouldn't. An it's shite hearing wot people fink about ya."

"No, I know. Sorry. I just meant—you're gonna find out what I did eventually. One way or another. You'd hear it, or someone would blab or whatever. I'm sure Nathan's dying to tell everyone I'm a druggie."

She shook her head, looking out over the lake if only so she didn't have to meet Kelly's gaze.

"Ya in for drugs?" she asked, surprise clear in her voice. "I wouldn'ta guessed."

"Why? What'd you think I did?"

"Dunno. Bopped a bloke for gropin' ya or somefin."

Thea couldn't hold back her laugh. She rocked back on the railing, so far that she nearly toppled back. Kelly jumped for her wrist and yanked her forward again. She flew off the barrier, tripping over her own feet and giggling even harder than she had been before. Kelly just gaped at her.

"Wot's so funny?"

"Nothing, nothing." Thea shook her head, trying to wipe the smile off her face. "That's just…That's exactly what I was going for. So thank you."

Kelly nodded, still looking at her funny.

"Anyway," Thea sighed, leaning on the barrier again, "they got me on pharmaceutical forgery. I was faking scripts for Adderall."

"Tha's one of those study drugs, ya? Make ya mad focused?"

"Yeah, pretty much. But I'm not allowed round the pharmacy anymore, so my flatmate gets me the cough sweets instead. Don't do much, but it helps to have something in my mouth."

"Don' let Nathan hear ya say that."

They snickered for a moment, imagining the disastrous outcome. It died pretty quickly though—Thea grimacing at her own line of thought and Kelly following suit. She flicked the rest of her cigarette out into the water with a heavy sigh.

"Guess we should 'ead in?"

"Yeah," Thea agreed. "Only delaying the inevitable."

She picked up her bag and followed Kelly inside. The others were already dressed and waiting around in the lobby. It was a sure sign of trouble that no one was fucking around. There was no fighting or bickering like there had been the past two days. Instead everyone was standing apart, heads low, mouths shut. Even Nathan wasn't talking. It was almost eerie.

Thea and Kelly changed quietly and walked back to join them. No one said anything, but they all shared a meaningful look. _Keep your mouth shut_, it said. _Stay strong, don't snitch, and we just might get through this. _

"Good morning, everyone."

A petite woman stepped out of the office, tell-tale clipboard in hand. She had dull brown hair, pallid skin, and beady green eyes that looked incredibly tired. Thea thought one good gust of wind might knock her over. Gutsy for a woman that frail to become a probation worker. She couldn't imagine any criminal taking her all that seriously.

She waved them into line with the clipboard and hesitantly cleared her throat.

"So…my name is Sally. I'll be your probation worker for…well, for the time being."

There was a long pause. Presumably one of them was supposed to interrupt, demanding to know where their other probation worker had gone. None of them moved. Thea hoped they looked more disinterested than worried.

Sally coughed, looking down at her clipboard again. She managed to get through roll without too much trouble. There was a moment of silence after she called Gary's name, longer than there really should have been. They all knew that he wasn't there. Sally had to know that too, seeing as she'd been called in as a replacement. There were obviously only six of them standing there, anyway.

When she was done she put the clipboard aside, folding her arms over her chest.

"Today you'll all be continuing the graffiti removal on the front of the building. All the necessary cleaning supplies are in the hall, and you'll have an hour for lunch. But…before you get started, I just wanted to share something with you all."

And here it was. Thea tried not to hold her breath, or at least make it look like she was still breathing.

"Gary and my colleague Tony have both been reported missing. Their families are very worried about them. Have you seen anything unusual? Anything at all?"

The silence was unbearable. Thea shook her head a bit, allowing herself a glance at the rest of the group. Kelly was looking at the ground, Alisha glaring a hole into the far wall, Simon and Curtis both trying to look confused while guilt locked their jaws. And then, directly to her right, Nathan raised his hand.

Well. At least Thea could say her surprise was genuine.

"You saw something?" Sally asked.

Nathan nodded, obviously trying not to choke up.

"A few days ago…I go into the toilets. Tony and Gary were in there. They're _butt-naked_. Tony has Gary by his hair—like this—and he's just doin' him. Doggy style. And Tony's like, 'Oh! Who's your daddy? I'm your daddy! I'm big daddy! Ugh! Oh yeah, you like that? Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah yeah, woah yeah, woah yeah, oh yeah! Oh, I'm daddy cool! Pft!"

There were not words to express how glad Thea was that she had closed her eyes. Hearing the complete display of idiocy was bad enough. She did not need to witness the enthusiastic demonstration that he was giving. Even when he'd stopped, breathing heavily and pausing like he was waiting for applause, she didn't dare look.

"So," he sighed, "I'm guessing they've run away to continue their illicit, homosexual affair. And I ask you—in this world of intolerance and prejudice, who are we—_who are we_ to condemn them?"

Only when several seconds had passed did Thea peek through her eyelashes. Sally was still glaring at Nathan. She was so livid that Thea could almost imagine someone finding her intimidating. But a moment later she stormed away, not even offering a reprimand.

Nathan looked around at the rest of them with glee, looking for approval and only receiving disgust and revulsion. Thea would've smacked him if she didn't have better things to do.

She broke off from the group, following Sally down the hallway and back to the office.

"Excuse me?"

Sally whirled around, quickly composing her face. "Oh, yes…?"

"Thea."

"Right. Thea. Did you think of something else?"

"No, uh I was just wondering if we could get back our phones?"

"Your phones?" Sally repeated.

"Yeah. Tony confiscated them from us yesterday morning. Which I don't think should be allowed, by the way. Anyway, he disappeared before we could get them back, so…can we have them?"

Sally was just staring at her. It wasn't all that different from the look she'd given Nathan, though why was more than Thea could fathom. Finally, she managed to speak.

"You want your phones. Two men are missing, and instead of trying to help, you want to know if you can have your phone."

It was incredible how fast Thea's sympathy evaporated.

"Yeah, it's very tragic. But we've all got families, and if I don't call my mum soon she'll probably file a missing person's report for me as well. Sorry that I dare to be concerned about my personal property instead of running in circles trying to tell you about something I know nothing about. Now can I have my damn phone or not?"

Sally pursed her lips. She nodded stiffly and turned to the desk, rifling through the drawers until she found where Tony had stashed their mobiles. She offered them back to her, managing to look a bit sheepish.

Thea couldn't have cared less. She snatched the phones and turned on her heel. What a bitch.

She wasn't surprised to see that the others had circled up to watch the confrontation. Thea held out the phones wordlessly. Most of the them just grabbed their phones with a smirk or a nod of thanks. Everyone except Nathan, of course, who couldn't pass up the chance to whistle at her.

"Watch out, everyone! Kitty's got claws! Rawr!"

She slammed the last phone into his chest and stormed past him. Prick.

If there was one good thing that had come out of Tony and Gary's deaths, it was that everyone was keeping their head down. Besides the occasional outburst from Nathan, the group worked quietly on their scrubbing. Thea was actually able to listen to her music. The paint on the side of the building slowly began to fade away, until the red had disappeared and there was merely a ghost of the artwork that had been there yesterday.

Thea tried not to think too poetically on that.

To her credit, Sally did come and check on them several times. Usually it was just a cursory glance to make sure they were actually being productive. Once or twice she added more cleaning solution to their buckets for them. She stopped by to tell them when they could take their lunch break, when their lunch break was over, and when they were free to finally, finally go home for the day.

All of them dropped their brushes instantly. Happy as she was to be free of the awkward and painful conversations, Thea's hands ached. She was excited to get home and watch telly with Marnie. She'd actually have to cook tonight, though. They'd already had too much takeaway this week.

Simon scurried in front of her, blocking everyone's path to the community centre.

"What?" Alisha demanded, unamused.

"There's…something we need to do."

"Which is?" asked Curtis.

"Not here," said Simon, lowering his voice. "Come on."

He walked away without waiting for any agreement or approval, his head swivelling left to right as if he expected an assassin to spring out from any bush or tree. The rest of them just stood there, exasperated.

"Come on! Really, man?" Nathan called after him. "I really wanted to hit the vending machine! I think I know how to rig it now!"

"Let's jus' go," said Kelly, rolling her eyes. "Get it ova with. Then we can go home."

She led the way after Simon, and the rest of them grudgingly followed.

Thankfully, whatever it was they had to do wasn't all that far away. Simon led them down several unnecessary twists and turns—like he really was trying to shake a tail—but finally stopped on a main shopping street. He beckoned them closer to the public phone. Once they were all huddled together, he checked the street again and pulled a slip of paper from his pocket.

"I found the number for the office of corrections, where they assign the probation workers. And this one is for Gary's home."

"And why do you have Gary's number?" Nathan asked, all too suggestively.

Simon blinked at him. "…I got it from the phone book."

"Forget that," Alisha scoffed. "Why do you have either those? What are we even doing here?"

"I thought we could call them."

Every single one of them stared at him—some in outrage, most in confusion.

"Call them?" Alisha echoed blankly.

"Are ya fookin' mental?" Kelly demanded.

"Sounds about right," said Thea, shaking her head.

"What happened to laying low?" asked Curtis. "You just want to call them out of the blue?"

"What're you gonna do?" added Nathan. "Apologise?"

"I'm not going to do anything," Simon explained. "Thea will."

"Um, no," said Thea, glowering at him. "Thea will not."

"It has to be you. You can use your power to sound like Tony and Gary. All you have to do is leave a message. That way the police will think they're still alive."

Thea's jaw dropped in outrage. When she noticed the looks of consideration everyone else was sporting, it dropped even further.

"Oh! Oh, alright! How about this? Why don't you turn invisible and I'll get right on that, Simon. You disappear right now and I'll make that phone call."

Simon withered.

"Ah, that's right," Thea sighed with mock realisation. "I forgot, you don't know how to control your powers. Well, neither do I. None of us do. We spent the last twenty-four hours trying to stay out of prison. Let's not fuck it up now."

"He's right."

Thea grit her teeth, turning to Curtis with a deathly glare. "Why am I not surprised you agree with hm?"

"It's the truth," he said, unfazed. "The longer our probation worker's missing, the worse the investigation's gonna get. What happens when they decide he's dead? That makes us the last people to see him. You said it yourself, no one's gonna believe we don't know anything."

"They won't be able to prove that we don't," Thea countered desperately. "There's no…"

"Evidence?" asked Alisha snidely. "Yesterday you said it didn't matter. Now that you've got to do something about it, it suddenly does. Which is it?"

"I—I don't know, alright? I just don't think we should risk it. I might not even be able to do it."

"Yeah, ya can," said Kelly. "Ya said so this mornin'."

Thea's heart dropped. Well, so much for whatever quiet alliance she'd thought she'd been building with Kelly.

"Said what?" Nathan asked, looking between the two of them.

"She woz talking like Tony all mornin'. She can do 'is voice."

"I _woke up_ from a nightmare like that," Thea growled at her. "I didn't do it on command. I don't know how to control it."

"Ha," Nathan scoffed. "Seemed to work just fine yesterday when you wanted to make fun of me."

"Just try," advised Simon. "Please, Thea."

She was quite ready to tell them all to fuck off and storm down the street. But the others had taken it upon themselves to form a loose circle around her. She wouldn't make it very far if she made a break for it.

With a groan, Thea closed her eyes and tried to focus. She tried to remember the way she'd felt that morning when she woke up, the speech Tony had given them on the first day, his stupid track and field t-shirt. She breathed deeply through her nose, and balled her hands into fists at her sides.

"This is stupid." She opened her eyes again, surveying the others in irritation. "See? Can't do it. Not today."

"Yeah, but are you really trying?" Nathan asked. "Or are you pretending to try while you're not trying because you don't really want to do it."

"I tried, Nathan."

"I don't believe you. You," he said, gesturing to Kelly, "was she really trying?"

"How tha fook should I know?"

"You're the mind reader! You should know if she's thinking about the probation guy or what kind of pants I'm wearing!"

"I don't remember what he sounds like," said Thea with finality. "Sorry, everyone."

"Maybe you should try repeating him," Simon suggested.

"Hm, good one, Simon. I would, but he's dead. Not saying much anymore."

But Simon was reaching into his pocket again. He pulled out his cell phone, and after clicking a few buttons, held the screen up for her to see.

She recognised the dark, ominous cloud instantly. It was a video from their first day of service. It could only be minutes before they were stuck by lightning, maybe less. So much had been going on, she hadn't even noticed that Simon was recording.

He was quick on the draw—she'd give him that. The video started barely a second after the first chuck of hail had fallen from the sky. The camera shook violently as Simon struggled to get a handle on it, making the rest of them appear as orange blurs. But she could just make out Tony, and then his car behind him.

_"That's my car!"_

_"Classic!"_

More screaming.

_"Okay! So I'm a little freaked out!"_

_"What is that?"_

_"That is not normal…"_

_"Ya think?"_

"You recorded all of this?" Thea grabbed Simon's wrist, pulling the phone closer to her eyes. "Jesus Christ, Simon. We said we weren't going to tell anyone about what happened, and you've got video footage of the storm?"

"Just the beginning," he said nervously. "The clip ends with the lightning."

"And you didn't fucking delete it?" asked Alisha.

Simon pulled his phone back and nervously flattened his hair.

"Just try and focus on Tony's voice," he said, rewinding the video. "Listen to what he says."

The video started over from the beginning, as all seven of them stared at the car wreck.

_"That's my car!"_

_"That's my car," _Thea echoed. Her voice had dropped several octaves, and she deflated. _"Motherfucker."_

"Hey, nice one, Weird Kid," Nathan praised, slapping Simon too-hard on the shoulder. "Who knew your being a voyeur would come in handy?"

"Go on," ordered Kelly, shoving Thea toward the phone. "Call it in! Before ya lose it!"

_"What? No!"_ Thea looked around at all of them in mounting panic. _"What if my voice comes back in the middle of the call? What if someone picks up? What am I supposed to say?"_

Simon reached into his pocket one last time, pulling out a piece of paper covered with eerily neat handwriting. Thea scanned it quickly. It was a script.

"The phones are closed this time of day," he said. "All you'll get is the machine. Just leave a message."

_"Jesus, Simon. When did you even write this shit?"_

"Last night. I just…um…You're not the only one who had nightmares."

He looked at her pleadingly with his creepily large blue eyes. And before she could stop it, Thea felt herself soften. This was fucked up. So, so fucked up. But it wasn't her problem. It was everyone's problem.

She huffed, grabbing the receiver and angrily punching in the number.

It was a relief when the answering machine kicked in. A recording of some raspy old bat told her that the office would be closed for another hour, and to leave a message if her situation was urgent. Thea pursed her lips and glared down at Simon's notes.

The line beeped.

_"Hello. This is Tony Morecombe of the Wertham district. I'm calling to resign from my post as probations officer at Wertham Community Centre. I…apologise for the delayed notice, but regretfully there are urgent personal matters that I must attend to. I don't know at this time when I will return, but…I feel that this is something I must do… Thank you."_

Thea dropped the receiver back on the hook.

_"That sounded like a load of bollocks."_

"It doesn't matter," said Alisha, shaking her head. "It's proof of life. That's all they need."

"Can we hurry this up?" Nathan complained. "I only had a Crunchie for lunch, and I'm actually getting hungry."

_"Piss off, Nathan."_

"Can you drop the voice?" asked Curtis. "You're supposed to be calling Gary."

"Ooh, _or_," Nathan interrupted, "you could call Gary's mum in Tony's voice and tell her that you're runnin' off together! His urgent personal matter was putting his cock up Gary's arse!"

_"I don't know how to drop it,"_ Thea said to Curtis, ignoring Nathan entirely. _"This morning I had to_—OW! That fucking hurt, Kelly!"

"Ya welcome," she said smugly, shaking her fist out. "Pick up tha phone. I wan' some chips."

"Ooh, chips," Nathan groaned.

Thea rolled her eyes, turning back to Simon. "Don't suppose you've got a stalker video of Gary as well?"

Simon had already queued it up. This one was harder to hear—a video of their squabbling after roll call. Gary was screaming obscenities, but it was tough to make it out over Nathan's gleeful laughter and Tony's bellowing. Thea repeated the fragmented threats until she was sure she had a hold on Gary's voice. Whether or not she'd be able to sell her take on his gangster slang remained to be seen.

She dialled the number, quickly reviewing the lines Simon had written for her. It wasn't far off from what Thea had originally assumed was the truth. Gary had gotten into some trouble and had to lie low. He'd call when he could, but he was fine. That would be easy enough to sell.

The line did not beep.

**"Hello?"**

Thea froze. She looked to Simon, the rest of the group, anyone for direction. They stared back at her in confusion. Obviously they couldn't hear the weak voice of the woman on the other end of the line.

**"H-Hello? Gary, is that you?"**

_"Um…"_

She jabbed her finger at the receiver frantically. Simon was the first to put the pieces together, but offered her absolutely no help. He waved his hands indicating for her to keep going.

_"Uh—yeah. Yeah, Mum, it's me."_

If Thea hadn't already despised herself for what she was doing, the woman's rattling gasp of relief would've stamped her ticket to Hell.

**"Oh thank God! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Lord! Are you alright? Gary, where are you?"**

_"I—I can't talk long."_

**"Did something happen? Are you hurt? Tell me where you are so I can come and get you!"**

_"No! No, don't—I can't."_

**"Gargar, baby, please tell me where you are. I promise I won't be mad. Let me get my keys and then I'll…"**

_"I said I can't, Mum!"_ Thea pressed a hand over her face, struggling to keep herself together. _"Look, I'm alright. I just…I ran into these guys and…I've just gotta lay low for a while."_

**"What guys?"** she demanded. **"Who were they? Should I call the police?"**

_"No! Don't—Don't call no one! I'm just…I'm gonna stay with some mates. Wait until it blows over."_

**"No, no, no, Gary, no…" **

She was sobbing now. Thea was sure she would vomit again right there on the street.

**"Why—Why can't—I just don't understand why you can't come home! I've been worried sick! We all have! Your father, your sister…"**

_"I know. I'm…I'm sorry, Mum."_

The sobbing stopped immediately. Thea's panic doubled, and she clamped a hand over her mouth. Obviously that had not been the right thing to say.

**"Gargar?"** His mother was whispering now. **"Are you…Are you sure you're alright? You're scaring me, sweetheart."**

_"Yeah,"_ Thea chuckled feebly, leaning her head against the base of the phone._ "I know, Mum. I'm just…I'm sorry. And I love you."_

She could hear his mother crying. Not frantic wails anymore, but a deadly, sinister sniffling. That was pure, raw despair. Thea's eyes were beginning to water as well.

_"I've got to go,"_ she said abruptly.

**"No! No, Gary, please! Don't go, just tell me…"**

_"I'll call when I can, Mum. Love you."_

She slammed the phone down and ended the call.

It was silent. God. She was so fucking sick of silence. No, she changed her mind. She didn't want everyone to keep their heads down and their mouths shut. She would take the loud, distracting bickering over this frozen stillness. This was unbearable.

"Thea, I'm…"

_"Don't, Simon."_

Thea squeezed her eyes shut. She never wanted to hear that stupid voice again. She wanted it gone, erased from her memory. It was hard to stop her shoulders from shaking. She held a finger up to Simon's shocked, nearly terrified face. When she spoke next, it was in her own voice.

"Just don't. It's done."

This time she blew through the group before they could stop her.

She stopped just short of sprinting. That would be undignified. And if she started running for a release, she might not stop. She'd either run until she left the Estate or until she started crying so hard her legs gave out. Neither was an appealing option.

But her guilt and angry were making her reckless. She felt them swirling and bubbling up in her chest, and did everything she could to neutralise them. She ripped open the package of cough sweets, popping two of them in and pressing them together until they broke. She even tried to swallow one whole, just to relish the feeling. It didn't help.

She rounded a corner, smacking the wall with her hands. It felt good—the resistance, the sting of the brick. She did it again, hitting whatever was sturdy enough as she passed. The wall. A tree. A rubbish bin. Lamp post. Bench. Table. Barrier. Rotten wooden siding that had previously been drenched in blood-red spray paint.

It wasn't a solution. But it prevented her from exploding.

Thea stormed through the community centre. She meant to go to the locker room, to rip the orange jumpsuit off and sprint home as fast as she could. But her logic seemed to have evaporate with her sanity at the end of that phone call. Instead, her feet tried to go on autopilot, and took the most familiar path. All the way up the stairs until they reached the roof.

It was cleaner than her roof. Clearly, she was not the first troubled youth to find her way up here. Some couches and chairs had been dragged out to furnish the space. They were probably all stained with cum and diseases, but they still looked comfier than milk crates. There was even a floor lamp in the corner, plugged into the electricity with enough extension cords to be a certain fire hazard. By that alone, it was obvious none of the staff knew what was up here.

Thea ignored the couches for now. She plopped down onto the cold ground, her back pressed up against the lip on the edge of the roof. She riffled through her bag until she found her lighter and her pack of cigarettes. If ever there was a time she needed to control her breathing, it was now.

Sucking down the smoke like therapy, Thea let her head loll back. Grey sky below her, grey concrete below. It was all so depressing.

She took the chance to tip her head farther back. She leaned back and back, until she could see the surface of the lake above her head. Her hair hung in her face, mixing in her vision with the ripples of the water. It made them look pink too. For a moment, she let herself believe it. An early sunset at two in the afternoon.

The door slammed open, and Thea sat up so quickly that she immediately keeled over onto her side. There was way too much blood in her head. She'd been upside down for too long.

"Guess what we gooot," Nathan sang, practically skipping over to where she lay in a huddle. "Chips! And beers! Eat up, Biker Girl."

He dropped the box in front of her face, and placed the can none too gently by its side. Thea rolled onto her back, taking the last few hits from her dying cigarette.

"I don't want your chips, Nathan."

"Why not?"

"Because I have a sneaking suspicion that you'll tell me I owe you for them later, and I'm not interested."

"Well that's just rude," he huffed. "Anyway, I didn't by them. Curt did."

"Do _not_ call me that," Curtis snapped. Thea peeked up at him with narrowed eyes, and he scoffed. "Don't make it weird."

"I don't want your pity."

"It's not pity, alright? They're just chips. Geez…"

He stormed off, collapsing onto one of the couches without a second thought. Thea considered warning him about the cum stains, but it was too late anyway. She wouldn't bother annoying him. She sniffed at the chips container and slowly sat up. Food couldn't hurt, she supposed. It wasn't healthy, but it was like Marnie always said. If her stomach was going to turn traitor and make her hurl, it was better to have something to chuck up.

As she ate, she cast a look over at the others—all hanging around the chairs, poking fun at the different pieces of furniture, complaining about whatever they'd eaten for lunch. It was the kind of scene that, under normal circumstances, would've made Thea put on her headphones. If not to drown it out, then at least to avoid it. But for the moment she just watched. It wasn't silence, and that was something.

Nathan nicked one of Kelly's cigarettes from over her shoulder, causing her to smack him in the stomach. He laughed, and must've thought something truly vile, because Kelly yelled and smacked him again. Thea snorted into her beer as Kelly stormed over to her.

"I swear," she huffed, struggling to get another cig out of the pack. "Tha next body we bury's gonna be 'im."

"Careful," Thea warned. "We've only got one dump site. And he's lanky. That hole would take ages to dig."

Kelly snorted. She took a breath of smoke, then offered it down to Thea. "Trade ya for a chip?"

"Yeah, go on."

They swapped back and forth for a while, the others trickling over to look out at the view. It wasn't until the chips were gone—when they were all standing in a line and looking out over the horizon, Curtis with his water, Thea her beer, the rest either smoking or staring—that anyone realised they were not alone.

Down on the sidewalk, Sally was looking at the lake too. She seemed restless, moving her arms from her hips to her torso to swinging at her sides. She looked around and caught sight of them on the rooftop, and quickly went on her way. Thea wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. She didn't seem suspicious so much as wary. There was no way to guess how much she knew. Had anyone found the voicemail yet? Had anyone bought it? Could the police trace the call?

She knew Sally was probably worried about her friend. Still. Didn't stop her from being a bitch.

Nathan nodded down to the sidewalk with a cheeky smile as Sally walked away.

"Huh. Well I think we got away with it."

"Do you actually believe that?" Curtis asked dryly. "Or are you just really dumb?"

"I _actually_ believe that!"

"He believes it because he's really dumb," Thea corrected. She smirked when Nathan stuck his tongue out at her.

"Maybe I am dumb! At least I don't go around parading some party trick like a superpower."

"Hey," Alisha snapped. "Her 'party trick' just saved all our asses. So why don't you shut the fuck up for a change?"

Her outburst took Thea by surprise. She couldn't help the small laugh of disbelief that bubbled up through her beer. Alisha rolled her eyes, but it was the same kind of expression she'd had after the water bottle affair. There was no real edge to it.

She'd managed to shut Nathan up, at the very least. Or at least forced him to change subject.

"I mean, I was there, right?" he complained—no context was necessary. "I should have one of these bullshit powers."

"Ya can have mine," Kelly said curtly. "Wanna hear wot people're finkin' about you?"

"Not so much, no," he replied, blowing smoke in her face. "I want somethin' good. You know, somethin' from the A-list."

"Telepathy is the A-list, you shithead," Thea laughed. "Name one group where there isn't someone who can read minds."

"Easy," Nathan said airily. "The Brighton Bells."

Thea accidentally laughed. "You—You are such a fucking moron."

"Maybe you can fly," Simon suggested, putting an end to the argument.

"He's not gonna be able to fly," said Alisha flatly.

But Nathan's face lit up like Christmas.

"Yeah! There's always someone who can fly! Check it out!"

"Don't," Kelly warned, to no effect.

Nathan scrambled up on top of one of the chairs. He teetered for a moment, bent his legs, then jumped up into the air with his fist held high. He immediately plummeted to the concrete, his knees buckling under him in what looked like a very painful angle. Nathan yelped and limped back over to them.

"Ow, ow! Ah, nope, that's not it."

"Learn that on Brighton Bells, did you?" Thea snickered.

He promptly held up two fingers and snarled at her.

"So what happens now?" asked Curtis. He was still looking out over the boring, grey buildings, brows knitted in frustration. "Is this it? We're gonna be like this forever?"

"What if we're meant to be like…superheroes?"

"Simon, you have got to stop," Thea sighed. She drained her beer and tossed the can at him with a giggle. "You watch way too many films."

"You lot, superheroes," Nathan scoffed. "No offence, but in what kind of fucked up world would that be allowed to happen?"

"Sounds like someone's pissy they're not on the team," Thea shot back.

"I don't want to be on your stupid team!"

"I did not sign up for that," said Alisha with a tony of finality.

"Superheroes," Nathan was still grumbling. "I love this guy. You prick."

Simon took a sip from his fizzy drink, clearly regretting his suggestion.

"Wot if they's loads of people like us all ova town?" asked Kelly.

"No," Nathan dismissed. "That kinda thing only happens in America. This will fade away. I'm tellin' ya, by this time next week, it'll be back to the same old boring shit."

Thea looked out over the lake. It really was turning pink now, reflecting the sky as the sun edged closer to the top of the stupid, uniform buildings that surrounded them. More grey on grey on grey, but now splashed with a bit of colour. She'd never seen the sunset from this angle. It was a nice change.

Maybe that's what had made her so stupidly optimistic. She was actually dumb enough to hope that Nathan was right. They'd been through enough shit the past forty-eight hours. The last thing she wanted was more shit to worry about.

Funny how things like that always turn out.


End file.
